With his tally of 400 runs in nine innings at a strike rate of 238.09 this IPL, teen sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi has blasted his way to runs in power plays. The 15-year-old has hit bowlers like Jasprit Bumrah, Josh Hazelwood and Pat Cummins for sixes this season and will be expected to face Aussie pacer Mitchel Starc during Rajasthan Royals’ match against Delhi Capitals today evening. With Starc having joined Delhi Capitals earlier this week and expected to play in his first competitive match since January after shoulder and elbow injuries, former West Indies pacer Ian Bishop believes the Australian pacer will come better prepared against a batsman like Sooryavanshi. When asked about whether Starc will expect the same treatment which Sooryavanshi gave to the likes of Bumrah, Bishop replied that Starc won’t be Bumrah.
“No, I think you have to give Mitchell Starc credit. He’ll come better prepared; he won’t be Jasprit Bumrah,” Bishop said on ESPNCricinfo.
Delhi Capitals are currently sitting at seventh spot in the points table with six points. The team has three wins and five losses under their belt with three losses in their last three matches. Their last loss came against Royal Challengers Bengaluru where they were bundled out for 75 runs batting first with the Bengaluru side chasing the target in 6.3 overs.
Bishop believes that the ideal scenario for Delhi Capitals against Rajasthan Royals on Friday will be to bowl first as it will give a bowler like Mitchell Starc the chance to run in and blow out Royals’ batting. When asked about Capitals’ bowling unit, Bishop was of the view that the bowling needs some work.
“That needs some work. And that’s where Mitchel Starc’s availability hopefully will be sort of able to seal some of those cracks up. Hopefully he is at his best. He hasn’t played for a while and one way and it’s out of their control in terms of recovering from that batting blood is for Mitchell Starc to have a first run and try to blow Rajasthan Royals. That would be the idea. And then you can go in. Because after you have been bowled out for 75 or whatever the case, some of these batters might be thinking that we don’t want to bat first and face up against Jofra Archer. So the ideal which you cannot control is to have Mitch to bowl first,” Bishop said. Sooryavanshi has hit one hundred and two half-centuries this season.
Last season, Sooryavanshi had become the youngest batsman to score an IPL century with his 35-ball hundred against Gujarat Titans. Earlier this week, Bishop had spoken about the teenage batsman during a media interaction. “I think his (Vaibhav Sooryavanshi) psychological makeup is efficient, enough to take on the best bowlers in the world. He took on Jasprit Bumrah. Technically, he’s kind of unique with his bat swing, more like a baseball sort of swing. It’s very hard to see exactly what his weakness is because the back of a length delivery has worked against him, for example, in the under-19 World Cup and against Sunrisers Hyderabad. But then if you don’t get that back-of-a-length delivery where he pulls and top edges early, those same deliveries disappear out of the park. So, I think, technically, he’s set up very well. He has a number of world-class bowlers in this tournament going through plan A, plan B, plan C, plan E, F, and G. And that’s a good sign that he has all these veterans of the game, having to go through a whole host of plans as they try to go yorker, yorker, at him in the previous game. So I think he’s set up well,” Bishop had told the media.
