IPL sensation Vaibhav Suryavanshi has received rich praise from ex-England captain Jos Buttler thanks to his exploits in the IPL 2025. Playing for Rajasthan Royals, the 14-year-old teenager slammed 252 runs in 7 games with a strike rate of over 200.
RR broke the bank for Suryavanshi in the mega auction ahead of IPL 2025, purchasing him for ₹1.1 crore, and boy, what a masterstroke it turned out to be.
Making his IPL debut, becoming the youngest ever to do so, Suryavanshi started with a six off the first ball he faced against Lucknow Super Giants. He then became a household name when he struck a 35-ball century against Gujarat Titans. Vaibhav became the youngest in IPL and T20 cricket to hit a century and hit the fastest ton in IPL by an Indian.
Jos Buttler, who was present in that match and kept wicket for GT, was asked about his initial thoughts about Suryavanshi in an interview with Stuart Broad on YouTube. The young player's rookie season captivated the T20 World Cup-winning captain, as seen by his answer.
"It's inspiring and deflating at the same time. This guy's 20 years younger than me, and he's just smashing us all around the park. But yes, absolutely like shockwaves throughout the sort of cricket world, I think, a 14-year-old guy getting picked out, that was the story wasn't it, he was in the auction as the youngest and Jimmy (Anderson) being the oldest in the age difference," Buttler told Broad on his podcast.
"But yes, he actually hit his first ball for six in the IPL. He played two or three games, I think before he played against us. So first ball he's ever faced in the IPL, he sort of gave himself a bit of room and smacked it over wide long off for a six and that fearlessness and I think I love these guys out there now. There's so many brilliant players, they almost want to make a statement as in look at me and whether I don't know we have to try and get him on the pod and ask him but like how long before that happened did you think I'm going to try and hit my first ball for six because it was a premeditated shot, it wasn't just there, he looked for it and then he was sort of born,” Buttler added.
"The innings against us, our bowling attack has Mohammed Siraj, brilliant international bowler, Prasidh Krishna, international bowler, Rashid Khan, best T20 bowler. And just the scale of the sixes, well, they're not just going over the boundaries, they were big sixes.
"And 35 ball 100, it was outrageous. And he actually played an innings, a couple of games later against Chennai. I was watching on the TV and Chennai have R Ashwin, Jadeja, proper season pros, and he'd bang, hit them out into the stands, then sort of knock one out to cover, sort of like, I'm so in control, I'll just take one now, drop down the other end.
And at that moment, I'm like, this guy's the best player I've ever seen. Like, I'm so blown away by it. The 100 was incredible, right? It was just like, but he went for it every ball. It was like, no fear," he further added.
Buttler responded that after seeing some footage, he thought Suryavanshi's bat swing was comparable to two cricket superstars when asked what his team's strategy was for Suryavanshi.
"He played a couple of games. Even at that age, I think he played first-class cricket at 12, something like that. He's from a very small state in sort of north-east India. I think it's called Bihar. Not many cricketers have been produced from there, but even at that age, he's playing first-class cricket.
I think he scored in the fastest hundreds for India under-19s against Australia under-19s, I believe, which was maybe just before the auction, around that time. So there's been a video. People have seen him with this amazing bat swing. Bit like, it's a huge statement, Yuvraj (Singh)/ Lara (Brian). But at the same time you're a bit like why am I getting so scared of a 14 year old," he said.
