Chopra on Suryavanshi: 'There is some amount of maturity already'

Rajasthan Royals' campaign never really took off in IPL 2025, where they won just four out of 14 games and finished second last on the table. But one of the brightest sparks of this season - across teams - came from the RR camp: Vaibhav Suryavanshi.

On Tuesday, Suryavanshi signed off with 57 off 33 balls against Chennai Super Kings (CSK). In the seven matches he played this season, 14-year-old Suryavanshi accumulated 252 runs at an impressive strike rate of 206.55. This included his hundred off just 35 balls in his third IPL game.

"Initially when you saw him - and I've seen a lot of his clips and the clips that you end up seeing before the guy actually plays the IPL - [the videos] were all of him hitting sixes, just standing and just delivering, fast bowlers, spinners alike," Aakash Chopra said on ESPNcricinfo's Time Out show. "And then you start thinking maybe he's a bit of a slogger, who just sees the ball and hits the ball and he's got no other gear. He has scored a lot of runs, but again, let's say it's [age] group cricket and all of that.

"And then he scored that century, takes centre stage and in that century also, he was just hitting. But now when you see him waiting patiently at the non-striker's end and that's exactly what happened today. When Yashasvi Jaiswal was hitting every ball for a four, he was patiently at the other end. He was, okay, 37-run partnership where he contributed only one. And then he waited and then he batted and he's happy to now rotate strike as well.

"Even in the previous game, when Marco Jansen and Arshdeep Singh were bowling to him, he had a clear-cut plan that 'if the ball is slightly short, I'm going to play it safely; but if it comes into my range, then it does not matter whether your name is Marco Jansen or Arshdeep Singh, you're getting deposited into the stands'. So, there is some amount of maturity already for us."

Now that Suryavanshi is done with RR for the IPL season, Sanjay Bangar wants him to focus fully on the cricket and not the external hype.

"The real challenge for him would be to deal with matters, non-cricketing matters," Bangar said. "At this stage, how can he stay away from all the hype and the hoopla that will surround him. So, that is a major challenge.

"Apart from that, can he maintain the same sort of game plan? Because this is something which is god-gifted. Or maybe he's worked very hard but there is apparent talent there. And he has to stay true to it. Because there will be whispers that, 'okay, bat a little bit differently, understand the game, understand the situations'. But all those things will come with time. And I think if he continues in this fashion, you have a guy who can dominate both space and spin.

"And what I loved about this particular innings is that we saw a lot of off-side shots as well. We saw a couple of shots over covers. We saw some off-side cover drives, copybook style. So, it means that it's not just on-sided here, which came to the fore when they played against GT [Gujarat Titans]. But here you had a greater range of shots. And I think he has to stay true to his game and stick to the game that works well."