Vaibhav Suryavanshi isn’t a finished product. The 14-year-old already has an Indian Premier League (IPL) hundred and made his debut for India ‘A’. But there’s much work yet to be done. Rajasthan Royals (RR) knew this before bidding for him at the IPL 2025 auction.
RR battled with Delhi Capitals to acquire Suryavanshi for INR 1.10 crore. For someone of his age, the southpaw had incredible power. It was evident as he tonked sixes with ease. But RR realised that they could improve his batting, not just via old-school methods but using technology.
How RR improved Vaibhav Suryavanshi’s timing
Suryavanshi warmed the bench in the initial stages of IPL 2025. But with Sanju Samson getting injured, he came into the team and quite literally started with a bang. But a lot of work had gone into it beforehand.
RR’s Director of Strategy & Analytics, Giles Lindsay, has revealed that batting coach Vikram Rathour had worked with Suryavanshi to improve his batting over a 4-month period. Using the new-age bat technology tool Str8bat, they found that the teenager had an exceptional bat swing, but fine-tuning other things, like timing, was important.
“We’re really fortunate to have tools like Str8Bat and FullTrack.ai that support that objectivity I was talking about. Str8Bat, for example, helps us understand batting performance through a sensor. We knew when we first saw Vaibhav Suryavanshi before the auction last year that he had an exceptional bat speed of 95 kilometres per hour, but his timing efficiency could improve. Through some focus work with Vikram Rathour (and the bat sensor – Str8bat), he actually increased it by 12% over four months at our high-performance centre before the start of IPL 2025,” Lindsay told Cricbuzz.
RR also used AI trackers in the nets for analysing batters and bowlers. From pitch maps to swing or spin, the technology provided it all to coaches to improve the areas where players are lacking.
“FullTrack.ai is a similar tool that we use in training, which is from a smartphone, and it essentially films every ball, automatically clipping and tagging it to give players and coaches feedback after the session, not only with the video clip, but also with their ball speed, how much spin or swing happened, the pitch location etc. So, they can look at beehives and pitch maps, as well as review each delivery visually. So again, it’s not guesswork, it’s clear, measurable evidence when we’re doing training, and it’s all to try and give our players the best chance of being successful on field when it really matters,” he added.
