Former Indian opener Virender Sehwag has showered praise on Vaibhav Suryavanshi ahead of the eliminator between Sunrisers Hyderabad and Rajasthan Royals at New Chandigarh on Wednesday.

Sehwag reckons the young batter has already exceeded expectations after scoring more than 500 runs in the ongoing season. Suryavanshi ended the league phase with 583 runs in 14 games at an average of 41.64 and a strike rate of 232.27. The left-hander’s strike rate is the best among the regular batters in the ongoing season.

Furthermore, Suryavanshi’s tally is the highest ever in the IPL for any teenage batter. However, the prodigy batter was dismissed after scoring only four runs against Mumbai Indians at the Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai on Sunday.

“The fact that he has scored over 500 runs in a season is an achievement in itself, forget about the strike rate. How many players have scored 500 runs? There must be 10 players, and among them is a 15-year-old kid, and he has the best strike rate out of all of them,” Virender Sehwag said on Cricbuzz.

On the other hand, former Indian fast bowler Mohit Sharma lavished praise on Suryavanshi for taking the attack to the opposition bowlers from the get-go.

“Vaibhav Suryavanshi has become such a destructive player at this time just by the way he is scoring his runs. If you take the name of the biggest bowlers, like Bhuvneshwar Kumar, or any other international bowlers that have come up against him, he has shown them from the very first ball what he can do with his batting. He has hit a four or six off the first ball. So, if his bat talks, then there will be bombs dropping from both end, with Jaiswal being the other one,” Mohit Sharma said.

Earlier in the season, the left-hander scored a stunning century against SRH and he would look to repeat the same performance on Wednesday.