![\"Vaibhav](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IPL-17_1777459863957_1777459924747.jpg\" "\\"Vaibhav")
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi of the Rajasthan Royals is playing a shot against the Punjab Kings. (Hindustan Times)<\/p>\nVaibhav Sooryavanshi has found the simplest answer to the strangest question around his remarkable IPL 2026 rise. After days of social media chatter over whether the Rajasthan Royals teenager\u2019s bat had an \u201cAI chip\u201d hidden inside it, the 15-year-old responded with a smile, a shrug of innocence, and a line that may travel as far as some of his sixes.<\/p>\n
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi of the Rajasthan Royals is playing a shot against the Punjab Kings. (Hindustan Times)<\/p>\n
In a video posted by Rajasthan Royals on their X account, Sooryavanshi was asked directly: \u201cBat mein AI chip hai kya tumhare?\u201d (Does your bat have an AI chip?) The question was not really about technology. It was about disbelief. It was about the kind of batting that makes people reach for impossible explanations because the obvious one feels too ordinary.<\/p>\n
\u201cBhagwan ne laga ke diya. Upar hi bola tha ki bat mein tumhare kuchh lagake de raha hoon. Usika istemaal kar raha hoon,\u201d Sooryavanshi replied. (God has fitted it. He told me from above that he was putting something in my bat. I am just using that.)<\/p>\n
The response came after Pakistan cricket analyst Dr Nauman Niaz had reacted to Sooryavanshi\u2019s hitting with a dramatic joke, saying the teenager\u2019s bat should be checked and that he should be sent to a lab, similar to how WADA conducts dope tests. He also said Sooryavanshi probably had an AI chip in his bat because his batting looked \u201cunreal\u201d. The comment was widely picked up because it carried the perfect social-media ingredients: a young prodigy, a wild-sounding line, and a performance level that already seemed to be bending normal cricketing language.<\/p>\n
Vaibhav turns disbelief into a punchline<\/p>\n
Such remarks are often made when sport runs out of proportion. Every generation produces a few athletes whose skills seem to arrive before their age, body and experience can explain them. In Sooryavanshi\u2019s case, that disbelief is sharper because of his age. A teenage batter is not expected to hit with such freedom, generate such clean power, or make experienced bowlers look as if they are reacting late to a game he has already understood.<\/p>\n
That is why the \u201cAI chip\u201d comment travelled. It was not a technical claim. It was a language of astonishment. Cricket has always invented exaggerated phrases for rare talent. Batters are said to have \u201cextra time\u201d, bowlers are said to have \u201cmagic wrists\u201d, and fielders are called \u201cmachines\u201d. In the AI age, the metaphor has simply changed. What once would have been called genius or god-gifted timing now becomes a chip, a code, a lab test, an algorithm hidden inside the willow.<\/p>\n
Also Read: What does Vaibhav Sooryavanshi have that Brian Lara doesn\u2019t? India\u2019s boy wonder believed to be hiding his true feelings<\/a><\/p>\n