Former Indian Test opener Kris Srikkanth has lavished praise on Vaibhav Sooryavanshi after Men in Blue registered a 3-0 series win against Zimbabwe at Harare on Sunday. The visitors won the final and last game by 35 runs to clean sweep the series.

Sooryavanshi shone with the bat after he could not deliver the goods in three T20Is against England.

The left-hander returned with scores of 50, 20 and 81 in the three games against Zimbabwe. The youngster scored a total of 151 runs in three matches at an average of 50.33 and a strike rate of 196.10 against the hosts.

Thus, Sooryavanshi was awarded Player of the Series for his consistent performances.

Sooryavanshi scored a fine knock of 81 runs off 49 balls with the help of eight fours and four sixes in the third T20I on Sunday. Srikkanth praised Sooryavanshi for his maturity to play according to the track.

“165 is a deadly strike rate, but for Suryavanshi, it felt like it’s just 165. You don’t often see that from him, but the application was right today. It was not an easy wicket. It was slow, some balls were bouncing, and some kept low. It was beautiful to watch as he showed maturity. He waited and took some time and did not go berserk. He applied himself, also took many ones and twos, which is a very good sign. The fact that he is pushing himself like that is a good sign,” Srikkanth said in a video on his YouTube channel.

The former Indian selector reckons India would have managed 160-170 runs on the board if Sooryavanshi had not scored a fine knock.

“If not for his 81, we would have maybe made 160-170. Others were not able to time the ball that well. That partnership between Vaibhav and Shreyas was also very crucial. They bowled yorkers to him, bowled just short of length, not short enough to pull, and that is where I thought Vaibhav tackled the bowling very well. He played for a long time as an opener, which was an important factor. If he had gotten out early, we could probably have been in trouble.”

Sooryavanshi would look to carry on the good show.