Prateek Tanmay
3 min readMay 28, 2026 12:13 PM IST
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi on Wednesday broke a record that was set just a year after he was born by Chris Gayle and the West Indies legend has taken note. Sooryavanshi, playing just his second season in the IPL, and the first full one as a regular in the Rajasthan Royals playing eleven, surpassed Gayle’s record for most sixes in a single season of the league as he launched a stunning assault on Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Eliminator of the 2026 IPL on Wednesday.
“What a phenomenal player Vaibhav is. Great entertainment young man! New Six machine @IPL,” said Gayle after the match in a post on X about the 15-year-old Sooryavanshi.
Sooryavanshi blasted a barrage of sixes with every SRH bowler, including captain Pat Cummins, bearing the brunt. Overall, the teenager hit as many as 12 sixes and five fours on the night. This took his tally of sixes for the season to a whopping 65. Gayle held the previous record of 59 which he had set in the 2012 season of the IPL. Sooryavanshi was born in March 2011.
What a phenomenal player Vaibhav is. Great entertainment young man! New Six machine @IPL pic.twitter.com/ofElAousF7
— Chris Gayle (@henrygayle) May 27, 2026
Sooryavanshi was inches away from breaking another big record that Gayle held – for the fastest century in the history of the IPL. However, he fell on 97 off 29 balls. Gayle had scored a century in 30 balls in his seminal knock of 175 for RCB against Pune Warriors India in the 2013 season.
Sooryavanshi said after the knock that he wasn’t aware that he was close to breaking the century record. “I wasn’t aware of the potential record. My centuries will come. I wasn’t really thinking about the century because I was actually thinking of getting the trophy for the team. But I played that shot after looking at the fielder, and that’s why I mistimed it. If I had gone towards thirdman, it would have cleared easily. But I tried to hit it straight, and that’s why I missed the shot,” he told the broadcasters.
Having already scored 175 in the Under-19 World Cup final, Sooryavanshi showed no signs of pressure in the Eliminator. Put to bat first by Sunrisers Hyderabad, he raced to his fifty off 16 deliveries and maintained the tempo throughout his whirlwind knock. Before the game began, he was seen heading to the pitch, crouching at one end with his eyes closed. And an hour later, he unfurled one of the best T20 knocks of all time.
