Vaibhav Sooryavanshi broke Chris Gayle’s record of most sixes in a season and was on the brink of breaking another one before he fell for 97. The teenage batting sensation admitted that he was not aware of the record of the fastest century in the IPL which he missed by three runs.
His 97 off 29 balls, studded with 12 sixes and five fours came at an excellent strike rate of 334.48, which set up RR’s 47-run win over Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Eliminator match on Wednesday.
“I got to know after the game,” he said at the post-match presentation when asked about missing the record of fastest IPL hundred.
“My focus was on hitting a six. I will score centuries in future but the focus was on getting maximum runs for the team. I just work on my plan and if there are any shortcomings, I just try to work on that.”
What was his preparation for the crucial game, he said, “I try to just analyse how to face the bowlers, judge the length of the boundaries. When I am showing good intent, the bowler is under pressure.”
“We have won so we will celebrate and try and do well in the next game. I don’t think much about the bowlers, try to just play my game.”
Rajasthan Royals captain Riyan Parag said the team management give Sooryavanshi his space and let him do his thing.
“We don’t have any conversations; just leave him alone. We give him a lot of batting practice and he does his thing.”
Speaking about the match, he said: “I like to be a perfectionist, but even today we should have got 260, right? But with the ball we were impressive, held our own. It was a good performance under pressure.”
Parag agreed that playing two back-to-back must-wins games has brought out the best performance from the players.
“You could say that. It also brings out the best among people. Everyone has turned up more in these last two games.”
The top-order batters of Sunrisers Hyderabad are always a threat to any bowler, Jofra Archer said one has to hold his nerve and hang in there.
“Usually the team that gets most wickets in the powerplay wins, and we did that. You just got to hold your nerve (while bowling to the SRH top order). Your good balls and bad balls are going to the boundary so you have to hang in there,” Archer said.
On Sooryavanshi’s brilliant innings, he said, “It was very exciting. The more runs he scores, the more runs we have to defend. He can get 150.”
Asked how to bowl to Sooryavanshi, Archer said, “I’ll tell you after the IPL.”
“One game at a time. We are going in the right direction. We don’t want to happen to us what happened to Kings XI,” he said when asked about the road to the final.
Meanwhile, SRH captain Pat Cummins attributed the defeat to losing wickets in a heap at the wrong time.
“A few things have to go right to chase 245 but we lost a couple of wickets at the wrong time. (SRH were) one tiny bit away from being in the top two, but can’t doubt the boys’ efforts.”
On Sooryavanshi, Cummins said, “He played pretty well. A very good pitch but the margins are so small, you miss our yorker but he doesn’t miss. (It was a) pretty good wicket. We are a very well rounded team.”
