‘Vaibhav Sooryavanshi an amazing talent’, says Lockie Ferguson:PBKS pacer speaks on Shreyas’ captaincy, workload management

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi has been the talk of the town in IPL 2026. At just 15 years of age, the left-hander has taken on some of the best bowlers in the world. Jasprit Bumrah, Josh Hazlewood, Trent Boult, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Sunil Narine- none have been spared from the youngster’s wrath and he is just getting started. Punjab Kings fast bowler Lockie Ferguson hailed the youngster for his performances this season, calling him an ‘amazing talent’. Ferguson also spoke about Shreyas Iyer’s captaincy and workload management for pacers, in a media round table involving Bhaskar English. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi is an amazing talent One of the highlights of IPL 2026 has been the young Sooryavanshi, whose fearless batting has left some of the best bowlers clueless. Ferguson hailed the young talent while also endorsing his Punjab Kings teammates, Prabhsimran Singh and Priyansh Arya. “I mean, he’s a good player. There are lots of good players in the IPL. ”We’ve got two pretty epic young players who opened the batting for us. So, yeah, I mean, I don’t think it’s any surprise that there are good players in the IPL striking well and performing. He’s obviously an amazing talent for the country,” he said. “We’ve got two of them who opened the batting for us. Amazing talents for the country. So a lot of competition for that opening spot for India,” added the New Zealand pacer. ‘Shreyas has had lots of ups and downs in his career’ One of the salient reasons behind Punjab Kings’ success so far this season has been Shreyas Iyer’s captaincy. Iyer has drawn praise from all quarters for his leadership skills and Ferguson echoed the same while speaking about his PBKS captain. “I played against him a lot. I Played A cricket against him when we were both a lot younger. And you can see he’s developed into a very confident player. And I think that sort of continues through his captaincy. He has a lot of trust in his players. He’s had lots of ups and downs in his career and understands that things don’t always work out perfectly,” Ferguson shared. But it’s not easy to be a captain. I can imagine the pressure he’s under as the leader of the Punjab franchise. But he does it so well.
He’s so consistent with his attitude and his temperament amongst the group, which I think flows onto how the guys play. Ferguson on Workload management Workload management, especially for the faster bowlers, has been one of the biggest talking points in cricket in recent times. Franchise T20 leagues make up a big part of players’ careers in modern-day cricket and perhaps that’s why Ferguson and four other NZ players opted for casual contracts from the New Zealand cricket board. Ferguson was of the viewpoint that such moves benefit players working on managing their workload and that the way they do it is very different from others. “There’s no doubt we’re playing more cricket than we ever have,” he said. The 34-year-old explained, “I’m working away on a platform myself that tries to help athletes be self-sufficient in managing their workloads and give them some direction around how much they’re bowling. But it’s very individualised for different players. Some players need more work, some players need less.” The pacer also shared that some players might prefer keeping themselves fresh for certain tournaments and taking rests during the season. On balance between bat and ball This year’s IPL has also stirred a solid debate on the balance between bat and ball. Scores in excess of 220 or 240 are being hunted down with ease and calls have been made for conditions to be made more bowler-friendly. Is the tournament tilted in favour of the batters? Ferguson answered the burning question. “As a bowler, we just adjust sort of our mindset around it. You know, if it’s going for 200, you’re trying to go for less than tens. You know, you just try to adjust as much as you can. And as we spoke about earlier, if they hit you off your good ball, you’ve got to quickly review whether it was a good ball or a bad ball or a mis-executed and try to bounce back the next ball and bowl a good one,” he said.