Former Indian Test opener Wasim Jaffer has likened Vaibhav Sooryavanshi with former opener Virender Sehwag amid the T20I series against Zimbabwe. After Sooryavanshi could not impress in his debut series against England, he was able to bounce back strongly in the first T20I against Zimbabwe.

Sooryavanshi scored a blistering knock of 50 runs off 19 balls with the help of four fours and as many sixes in the series opener on Thursday.

The youngster brought up his maiden T20I fifty after a difficult start to his International career. The prodigy batter was able to hit the ground running in the run-chase of 126 and a six over long-off while playing on the backfoot was the highlight of his innings.

The 15-year-old batted at the top of his game and took the attack against Richard Ngarava in the second over of the innings. The youngster scored 20 runs off just nine deliveries in the second game of the series on Saturday.

Jaffer was impressed with the way Sooryavanshi stuck to his aggressive game despite low returns in England.

“You do doubt yourself when you don’t score runs, but you should back your game. Viru (Sehwag) would do the same, and I am sure Vaibhav will keep the same fearless approach irrespective of what form he is going through. If he is playing well, he is anyway dangerous, but even if he is not scoring, he should back his game knowing how he scores. That is something that is very likeable about him,” Jaffer said in a video on his YouTube channel.

Jaffer admitted he was not surprised by Sooryavanshi’s innings and this knock will give him a lot of confidence.

“It was expected from Suryavanshi. It was surprising that he did not do well in England. But this was expected and good to see. It is like getting that monkey off the back. When you perform at the start, the pressure gets off a bit, otherwise, that question mark is there no matter how good you are. Hopefully we see some consistent performances from him.”

Sooryavanshi had returned with scores of 13, 14 and 15 on England trip.