Dear Vaibhav, well done

TL;DR

Virat Kohli's brief signed-cap message to 15-year-old Vaibhav Suryavanshi after his stunning IPL performance became the week's most talked-about gesture.

Key Points

• 1.Vaibhav Suryavanshi is the standout story of the IPL week. The 15-year-old struck 78 off 26 balls at a strike rate of 300 for Rajasthan, dismantling RCB's attack including Josh Hazlewood, as RCB's 201 was chased down with overs to spare.
• 2.Virat Kohli's gesture to Suryavanshi became the episode's title moment. After the match, Kohli signed a cap and gave it to Suryavanshi with the message 'Dear Vaibhav, well done' — brief but celebrated as a passing-of-the-torch moment between generations.
• 3.Prahlhad and Saqib Hussain dismantled Rajasthan in the Sunrisers game. Prahlhad took three wickets in the opening over — the first time in IPL history — finishing with 4/34, fulfilling a written manifesto he made the previous year predicting a 4-5 wicket IPL debut.
• 4.Sanjay Manjrekar sparked controversy by dismissing T20 batting excellence. He tweeted that T20 batting is 'far easier to achieve' because getting out carries no real backlash, prompting the host to joke he was now on LinkedIn looking for work.
• 5.Sandeep Samson scored 115 off 56 for CSK against Delhi Capitals. It was the fourth time Samson has scored the IPL season's first century, having done so previously for Delhi Daredevils (2017), Rajasthan Royals (2019, 2021), and now CSK in 2026.
• 6.Tim David was fined 25% of his match fee for refusing to return the ball to umpires. After hitting massive sixes requiring a ball change, David picked up the ball himself, inspected it, and began juggling it, defying umpires' orders twice.
• 7.Rajasthan's team manager faced a BCCI show cause notice for using a mobile phone in the dugout. However, it emerged he had sought prior ACU permission before the tournament due to a medical condition that hospitalised him for three weeks before the IPL.
• 8.Makul Chowry won KKR vs LSG with an outrageous six over point off the penultimate ball. The 20-year-old scored 54 off 27, hitting six off the second-to-last ball on his knees to seal Lucknow's chase of 181 off the final ball.