Though Vaibhav Sooryavanshi missed out on shattering Chris Gayle’s record for the fastest hundred in the Indian Premier League (IPL) in the Eliminator on Wednesday, he scaled a host of other illustrious milestones. The young batter managed to hit 65 sixes in IPL 2026. With this, he became the first batter with the highest number of sixes in a T20 tournament.
Sooryavanshi broke Gayle’s long-standing record of 59 sixes in IPL 2012. While the latter took 456 balls to achieve the feat, the 15-year-old cricketer needed only 266 deliveries to set the record.
The Rajasthan Royals (RR) batter smashed a fifty in just 16 balls, the joint-fastest in IPL playoffs, against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in the Eliminator, which was played at the Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Cricket Stadium, New Chandigarh, on Wednesday, May 27. Previously, Suresh Raina had also scored fifty in 16 balls against Kings XI Punjab (now Punjab Kings) in Qualifier 2 of IPL 2014.
Also Read: One night, two records: Virat Kohli eclipses MS Dhoni and Chris Gayle
Sooryavanshi, who has scored 680 runs from 15 innings, has an incredible strike rate of 242.85 this IPL season. He also became the first batter ever to score more than 600 runs in a T20 tournament while maintaining a strike rate above 200. The previous best was Rilee Rossouw, who scored 623 runs at a strike rate of 192.28 during the 2022 T20 Blast.
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi breaks several records with his 12 sixes in the Eliminator
The RR player also smashed 12 sixes from just 29 balls against SRH in yesterday’s match, equalling the record for the most sixes by an Indian batter in an IPL innings. Interestingly, he matched his own record that he had set earlier this season against SRH in Jaipur.
Sooryavanshi’s record of 12 sixes is also the most by any batter in an IPL playoff match. He went past Shubman Gill’s record of ten sixes against Mumbai Indians (MI) in Qualifier 2 of IPL 2023.
His batting prowess was on full display in the Eliminator, where he took only 24 balls to hit his first ten sixes in the innings, which is the fewest deliveries taken by any batter in IPL history. Gayle had earlier needed 27 balls to reach ten sixes during his famous 175* against Pune Warriors in 2013.
Out of his 12 sixes against SRH, eight came during the powerplay, which is the highest by any batter in this phase in an IPL innings. Before this, five batters had managed seven sizes in the powerplay, including Sooryavanshi himself earlier this season against SRH in Jaipur.
