Former Australia captain Steve Waugh opened up on the comparison between Vaibhav Suryavanshi and Sachin Tendulkar. Waugh claimed that no one can be compared with Sachin Tendulkar, who toured Australia as an 18-year-old and smashed a hundred in Perth, one of the toughest surfaces to bat on at the time.
Waugh claimed that Tendulkar was a freak from a very young age and added that it is very rare to see someone as young as Sachin come through the ranks in cricket. However, he also agreed that Suryavanshi pulled off something unimaginable too. The former World Cup winning captain said that he woud have never expected a 14-year-old to smash an IPL ton.
“I don’t think you can compare anyone to Sachin Tendulkar. I mean, a 16-year-old (18-year-old) coming out to Australia and scoring a century in Perth on the hardest, (the) most unique pitch in world cricket where most players really struggle to play on a pitch,” Waugh said to JioHotstar.
“For him to score a century as a teenager in Perth was a freakish performance. It’s very rare you get a Sachin Tendulkar come along. But I would never have expected a 14-year-old to score a 100 in the IPL, that was unthinkable,” the former Australian skipper added.
Steve Waugh praises Vaibhav Suryavanshi for his IPL heroics
As Suryavanshi has been following the footsteps of Tendulkar in terms of achieving success at a very young age, there have been comparisons made between the two. Vaibhav smashed a hundred in just 35 balls in the match against the Gujarat Titans in the IPL 2025, which caught the attention of the cricketing world.
Waugh added that it is difficult for him to believe that a 14-year-old smashed the second-fastest ton in IPL history. He claimed that a 14-year-old Waugh would not even comptemplate doing something like it.
“Even right now it’s unthinkable. I look back to myself as a 14-year-old and I couldn’t contemplate being in that situation and being successful,” Waugh concluded.
