Graeme Swann admits he’s scared of Vaibhav Sooryavanshi

The 2026 Indian Premier League concluded days ago, but the fever Vaibhav Sooryavanshi has stayed relevant among cricket fans across the nation as a topic for discussion. At the age of only 15, the way the Rajasthan Royals (RR) batter performed from the beginning to the end, it looked surreal.

Sooryavanshi was the winner of the IPL 2026 season for scoring the most runs in the season. Along with the Orange cap, the young prodigy claimed a few other individual awards as well in the campaign. Former England spinner Graeme Swann says that the Bihar-born is a special talent.

Graeme Swann explains why he rated Vaibhav Sooryavanshi so high

Graeme Swann told the news agency PTI that Vaibhav Sooryavanshi is a special talent, and he would not like to bowl against him as he watched how the southpaw toyed with some of the world-class bowlers throughout the IPL 2026 season.

Swann observes that the young batter performed in the middle without any fear, which makes him more dangerous. The former spinner also mentions that as of now, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi has not tasted any failures, which could be a reason behind his fearless approach.

He’s a special talent: Swann

“Yes, he’s a special talent. As I said earlier, I wouldn’t want to bowl him. If I were playing the game, I would not want to bowl him. He’s at that age where he’s completely fearless because he’s not had failure,” the former England cricketer says.

The report further explains that bowlers came up with different plans, including lethal Yorkers, to prevent the batter from scoring runs freely. But most of the strategies did not work, and the batter continued scoring runs freely.

“However, having done well before and big raps in the under-19s, going into the IPL and people saying, you know, after he got a couple of starts and then you remember people bowled yorkers and said, ‘Oh, we’ve found him out. You can’t do it time and time and time again against world-class bowlers. But he got better and better as the IPL went on. Those couple of 90s in the playoffs, they were ridiculous. I was there for one of them, the one in Chandigarh. It was the most audacious knock from a 15-year-old kid,” Swann added.

776 runs in 16 matches for Sooryavanshi

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi finished the IPL 2026 season as the tournament’s highest run-scorer, scoring 776 runs in 16 matches at an extraordinary strike rate of 237.31. His IPL 2026 season was decorated with 1 century and 5 half-centuries, with a highest score of 103 off just 37 balls. During the campaign, the teen prodigy shattered Chris Gayle’s record for the most sixes in a single IPL campaign, hammering 72 sixes.

After the extraordinary IPL 2026 season, the national team selection committee named the batter in the T20Is squad for the upcoming tour in the United Kingdom and for the 2026 Asian Games. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi could make his team India debut at the age of only 15.