Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s technique compared to Don Bradman’s© Getty
How good is Vaibhav Sooryavanshi? That’s the question the entire global cricketing spectrum is trying to decode. The teenage batter didn’t succeed in getting his bat to do the talking against England but set the stage on fire against Zimbabwe. He finished the 3-match assignment against Zimbabwe as the top-scoring batter and was also named the Player of the Series. As the world goes ga-ga over his performance, former India batter Robin Uthappa, who won the IPL twice in his career, compared the India star’s batting technique with the legendary Sir Donald Bradman.
Drawing comparisons between the two, Uthappa said that bowlers often resorted to body-line bowling to stop Bradman from scoring runs. Though these are early days in Sooryavanshi’s career, bowlers are often seen using the same tactic against him.
“It’s hard to say that now. We haven’t really seen the bowlers respond to what Vaibhav is doing. People are just coming to terms with the way he’s batting. So we’ll have to wait and see. Because when Bradman was batting the way he did, what they resorted to was bodyline. Vaibhav has a similar technique to Bradman, where he almost never got out LBW,” he said in a video on his YouTube channel.
“If Vaibhav can maintain an average in the high 40s with his strike rate, he could be considered an outlier. It would have also been interesting to see if the World War 2 hadn’t happened and Bradman had played 30 Tests more, would be have still averaged 99 or over a 100?”
Uthappa feels Sooryavanshi could be considered an ‘outlier’ if he continues to put up the sort of numbers he has so far in his career.
“Outliers also happen a lot more now than ever before. It’s because people aren’t reliant on traditional bowling or batting techniques. Any technique has become more acceptable today. More players are relying on their natural god-given ability than a particular way of playing,” said Uthappa.
“That’s why an MS Dhoni was accepted as he did his own thing, similar to Vaibhav now, who’s doing his own thing. Yet, you still enjoy a Sachin Tendulkar, Shubman Gill or Virat Kohli, who bat their own way as well.”
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