Jos Buttler on Vaibhav Sooryavanshi: ‘He is the best player I have ever seen’

“I played in the game where he got 100 in the IPL. Even as a 14-year-old at that point, playing against an attack of Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, and Rashid Khan—proper bowling attacks—I was in awe of these shots. The bat flow, the distance he’s hitting the ball, that fearlessness… and I must say, the England boys played so well throughout that whole Under-19 World Cup. They went unbeaten into the final, and then you run into Sooryavanshi, who scores 175 in the end with 14 fours and 15 sixes. I was watching it on TV thinking these are not just any old shots; they’re some of the best shots you’ve ever seen.”

Wood also confessed to being left awestruck by Sooryavanshi.

“I think of what I was doing at 14 and I think of what he’s doing at 14. I mean, unbelievable. The closest I got to anything at that stage was the pressure of a snowball fight on the schoolyard. That was probably as close as I got to that sort of pressure. I mean, unreal. 14 years old, and he plays shots like an experienced 30-year-old,” Wood chuckled.

Wood also empathised with the England team which was at the receiving end of Sooryavanshi’s barrage of sixes and fours.

“Watching that game, sometimes they didn’t do a lot wrong. It was almost like we shifted a field and then he’d hit it in that gap and it was just like this is one of those days! Just happens to be in the final. It’s just he played so well,” Wood added.

In the IPL last season, Sooryavanshi played seven games for the Rajasthan Royals franchise, where he smashed a century against Buttler’s Gujarat Titans and then scored a 57 against Chennai Super Kings.

Asked by Wood if he sees Sooryavanshi becoming an “absolute superstar” or getting derailed with the pressure and other factors in coming years: “Don’t see how he can’t be (an absolute superstar). To be playing the way he can at 14 years old. If he hadn’t played in the IPL, you’d say, ‘Oh, he’s only done it in under 19 World Cup, and yes, it’s amazing, but let’s see when he steps up to senior cricket’. But he’s already played in IPL and he’s got 100. He hit his first ball in the IPL for six. The game he got 57 against Chennai, there were Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja bowling. He was whacking the ball for six and then sort of tapping one off his hip to trot down the other end like a seasoned pro just seeing his team home. So I can’t imagine what can derail that sort of a player.”