South Africa and Gujarat Titans’ pacer Kagiso Rabada said that Rajasthan Royals’ 15-year-old Vaibhav Sooryavanshi has been able to dominate the bowlers in this IPL due to his fast hands and ability to pick the lengths early as well. Sooryavanshi changed gears from the Eliminator to Qualifier 2, smashing scores of 97 and 96, but RR failed to advance to the final, losing to GT in Qualifier 2 by 7 wickets as well.

Rabada told JioHotstar, “He just keeps amazing everyone who watches the game. He’s got such fast hands, and he picks length quickly. He’s got so much energy. When you’re young, you have so much energy and no fear, and that’s exactly what he’s shown, no fear and just a natural instinct for the game that allows him to perform the way he is performing. At this stage, you throw age out of the window; it doesn’t matter how old he is. It’s amazing what he’s doing.”

However, Rabada played an important role in GT bowlers restricting the RR batters, returning 4-0-35-2, but said that his side’s bowlers also missed their marks quite often.

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“The plan was to back our strengths, as we normally do, and hopefully get early wickets. We did get two early wickets, but then they fought back, and we missed our mark by bowling a few too many short balls, where we probably wanted to challenge them a bit more upfront,” Rabada said.

“They got away from us a little, but we knew we weren’t completely out of it because we knew we could still get wickets. We had the game under control until the 19th over. It was pretty tough for Rashid (Khan) to come on and bowl on this wicket as a spinner against some genuine power hitters. We probably felt that 180-190 was what we should have restricted them to, barring the dropped catch (of Sooryavanshi),” he again added.

Talking about his bowling partnership with Indian pacer Mohammed Siraj, Rabada said that Siraj increases the chances of him taking wickets.

“Siraj’s my partner this season. We’ve just been trying to operate as a partnership. If he’s putting pressure on from the other end, then hopefully I can do the same, and that’s how we get wickets,” the South African pacer said. “Everyone knows him. He’s got a lot of heart, and he’s got a lot of skill too. It’s lovely to be bowling with him (as) it just increases your chances of getting a wicket because someone at the other end is applying just as much pressure, if not more.”