GT and RR will take on each other in the third playoff game of IPL 2026 in New Chandigarh on Friday, May 29. With 680 runs at a great strike rate of 242.85 in 15 innings, Vaibhav Suryavanshi is the leading run-scorer thus far this season.
In a video shared on his YouTube channel, ‘Aakash Chopra,’ he said, “We had not envisaged that a 15-year-old kid could dictate everything, that all your bowling plans could revolve around a kid. It’s not like people have not come with plans. Hyderabad had also come with a plan. They tried bowling yorkers at the start, but once you missed that mark and he hit two or three sixes, whether it was Pat Cummins or Eshan Malinga, they went off their plan massively.”
“It’s imperative for Gujarat to stop Vaibhav. How rarely do we say that it’s imperative? We haven’t said that even for Abhishek, Ishan, Rohit, or Virat, that if he fires, you won’t survive at all. We are saying that with him, that if he plays 40 balls, it’s over. He will score his hundred by the 11th over, and then the team will be close to 150. This kid is a different storm. It’s very difficult to understand this storm,” he further added.
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However, Aakash Chopra also said that the IPL 2026 Qualifier 2 between the Gujarat Titans and the Rajasthan Royals is a match between contrasting opening philosophies.
“If there is control on one side, there is chaos on the other. If you look at it in terms of contribution, the GT openers have together scored 719 runs. The opposing ones have also scored 747. They have run at a strike rate of 206. If you see the split, Vaibhav alone has scored 426, and that is the big difference, because Yashasvi Jaiswal has a contribution of 291,” he said.
“The partnership’s strike rate is 206, but Vaibhav runs faster than that. Which philosophy would work more? There are more chances of RR’s philosophy working while batting first because then there are no variables. There will be no scoreboard pressure. You can start a little fearlessly while batting first. You can actually control and destroy the Powerplay if you bat first,” Chopra added.
“When you get to bat second and are chasing 250 or 230, you feel the obligation to hit on every ball, but the chances of making mistakes increase a little there. Gujarat don’t mind chasing as long as it’s not in the 220-230 range. They are fine if it’s below that, but this team won’t score less than 220-230,” Aakash Chopra concluded.
