Following Vaibhav Sooryavanshi's extraordinary century in the U19 World Cup final last week, Mark Butcher has compared the 'astonishing' teenager to West Indies' great, Sir Garfield Sobers.
The latest innings from the Indian prodigy came in India's U19 World Cup final win over England. Sooryavanshi smashed 175 off 80 balls, setting a new record for the highest score by any batter in an ICC tournament final at youth or senior level, as well as hitting the most sixes by any batter during a youth ODI innings (15). India set England 412 to win, and completed the victory by 100 runs, with just under 10 overs to spare.
Butcher: The first thing that popped into my head was Garry Sobers
"The first image that flashed into my mind watching him smoke it to all parts – the violence in the bat swing, the timing and the purity of the contact – the first thing that popped into my head was Garry Sobers," Butcher said, on the Wisden Cricket Weekly podcast. "The hand-speed, the way that he uses his legs in the ground, the way that the bat literally follows through until it slaps him in the middle of his back, was purely Sobers. I would urge people from a different generation who don't have that picture of Garry in their minds eye, to seek out the video of him hitting the six sixes at Swansea off Malcolm Nash back in 60-something. Just watch and I swear to God it looks exactly the same."
Sobers became the first batter ever to hit six consecutive sixes in a single over in first-class cricket in 1968. He played 93 Test matches for West Indies between 1954 and 1974, scoring 8,032 runs at an average of 57.78, including 26 hundreds.
"It's astonishing to watch," said Butcher. "And it's against all types of bowling. I've seen things saying his bottom hand is around the bottom of the bat, I didn't see anything different in his grip particularly but in terms of the way he uses his legs to drive the bat-swing and the way that the bat swing just keeps going until it disappears and slaps him in the middle of his spine is just pure Sobers. Get a look at it if you can, that's all I'll say."
Sooryavanshi made his debut for India U19s in 2024 aged 13, and scored a 58-ball hundred on his youth Test debut against Australia U19. He made his first-class debut at the age of 12, becoming the fourth-youngest player in Ranji Trophy history. In the 2025 IPL auction, he was bought by Rajasthan Royals for 1.1 crore, and went on to score a century off 35 balls against Gujarat Titans in that season.
"In many ways he's a bit of a throw-back," said Butcher. "Yes, he hovers the bat a little, but it's on it's way down back towards the floor before he takes it back up again. That generates these incredible kinetic forced that allow him to smash it. The reason people don't do it is because it's hard. You think of the way that Lara used to pick the bat up and that looked impossible to most people. Why would you? It just looks like the whole thing is completely out of control. But if you can do it, then it works."
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