Former India cricketer Ambati Rayudu picked his favorite batters in the IPL 2026, and ended up choosing RR prodigy Vaibhav Sooryavanshi over legendary cricketer Virat Kohli. Rayudu, who is currently commentating for the current season of the Indian Premier League alongside former teammates such as Suresh Raina, Ravichandran Ashwin, and others, selected his favorite picks amongst batters in the current season for a segment on ESPN.
He started off by choosing Shubman Gill over KL Rahul, followed by picking PBKS’ Prabhsimran Singh over the GT skipper. At one point, it seemed like the new Punjabi sensation is his favorite batter these days considering he chose him over Ajinkya Rahane, CSK skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad, and even RR’s Yashasvi Jaiswal. The cricketer-turned-commentator dropped Singh over his teammate Priyansh Arya.
Interestingly, the former CSK batter selected RR’s newest-batting sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi over legendary cricketer Virat Kohli. While he also decided to go with the 15-year-old over Sanju Samson, Rayudu selected SRH’s Abhishek Sharma as his ultimate favorite batter this season.
Not a good sign: Ambati Rayudu goes critical on Jitesh Sharma’s batting
The former cricketer criticized RCB batter Jitesh Sharma’s poor batting prowess and opined that Sharma had a chance to make a sharp comeback after the recent break that the team had. But, he said, the wicketkeeper-batter didn’t utilize the opportunity to work on the gap. “I think he had a great opportunity to come back sharp after the small break that they had, but he just seems to be getting late on short balls. That's an area he could have worked on in this gap, and I don't think he did. The same thing is happening again and again, and it's not a good sign because IPL matches come really fast,” Rayudu told ESPN.
“If you have a weakness that is as profound as what we are seeing with Jitesh, it becomes very hard to compensate for it to improve during the tournament because there are not many practice sessions and not much time now,” he added. Notably, in their recent game, the defending champions slumped to the Lucknow Super Giants, where Sharma could manage to score only one run off three balls.
