Former South African pacer Dale Steyn has made a bold prediction that wonder kid Vaibhav Sooryavanshi is going to achieve far bigger things than stalwarts Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli by the time he finishes his career. Sooryavanshi had an astonishing run in IPL 2026, scoring 776 runs to bag the Orange Cap and the left-hander subsequently has been included in the India T20 squad to tour Ireland and England. “Sooryavanshi is a different gravy, man! He’s better than most international players right now. He is a boy wonder, somebody who is a treasure for Indian cricket,” Steyn told a select media gathering during an interaction facilitated by SA20 in the lead-up to Season 5.
However, Steyn underlined the importance of taking care of the young talent to ensure a long career for him.
“You think of guys like Sachin, Virat, and this kid is going to explode. He’s going to be bigger than both of them put together at the end of his career. So, I would caution how you manage him and look after him because with great responsibility, comes great reward.
“But there’s a big threat there that you could lose him at some point if you don’t look after him well enough,” he added.
So, what makes the 15-year-old the most noticed batsman in contemporary cricket? “He’s a fantastic ball striker. I’ve watched him play in India where the wickets are good. The fields are slightly smaller, just slightly. And with the wickets as good as they are, he’s exploited that really well. He’s a very good player who can do that.” However, Steyn, who has 699 international scalps, thought Sooryavanshi can be stopped if bowlers can instill a bit of “fear factor” in the left-hander.
“I think (Kagiso) Rabada bowled at him well. You’ve got to test him upstairs and he’s still young, he’s only 14-15, and if you can throw a little bit of fear factor into the game, I mean, cricket is a fear factor game.
“…if you go into the game scared, if you’re fearing somebody, not for your life, but even just fear bowling to them or fear facing them, fear can make you do silly things. So, the short ball towards him is probably a good option,” he noted.
The 42-year-old also lauded 37-year-old Kohli for holding his own amid the rush of fresh talents.
“I think Kohli’s ability to sustain his mental approach to the game, stay fresh, stay wanting to continue to perform says a lot about him.
“He’s got a lot of self-drive, which is something that I think all of us cricketers had when in my era, and that’s the only thing that we had,” he said.
Bowlers have left a hapless lot in this bull run by generations of batters, and they are increasingly resorting to a multitude of variations to stop them in T20 cricket.
But Steyn advised the bowlers to employ different types of deliveries judiciously to make them less predictable.
“Yeah, it’s a tough one. You look at somebody like Fazalhaq Farooqi from Afghanistan. He’s probably the one bowler that I feel has got more skills than anybody. The key thing for him is when to use them and how to use them and that’s something he has to learn.
“I certainly don’t like training guys to have too many skills because it can often lead to confusion as to which one to bowl right now. But it certainly is a valuable asset to have as many skills as he has. But it’s all about knowing when to bowl it and when not to bowl it,” he said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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