IPL 2026: 5 Impact Players who truly made an impact

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi - Rajasthan Royals

A 700-plus run season in a first full season in the IPL is an achievement of the highest order, let alone for a 15-year-old. The magnitude of what Vaibhav Sooryavanshi has achieved in his sophomore year of IPL cricket is unprecedented, to say the least, and is one of those achievements which would take a lifetime to replicate. The prodigious southpaw lit the season alight in 2025 and showed the world why he is such a highly rated prospect.

In 2026, Sooryavnshti showed that he could not just hang with the big pros but could assert a level of dominance they had never faced before. He scored a whopping 776 runs at a strike rate of 237.70, the highest in the league. He scored his second IPL century off just 36 balls and was almost on cue to break Chris Gayle's record of the fastest hundred, but fell for 96 in the Eliminator against Sunrisers Hyderabad. He picked up five of the available individual awards, in what was a record-shattering year for the young starlet.