Former Indian Premier League (IPL) commissioner heaped praise on teenage sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, saying that the 15-year-old will be bigger than even Argentina’s Lionel Messi as well as Hollywood and Bollywood stars.
“What a delight he is. He will be bigger than anybody on the planet. He will be bigger than any Hollywood or Bollywood star. He will be bigger than the Messis of this world… I say this with conviction when I see his style of batting and the fearlessness in that boy. At that age to have that confidence, it’s a magic…,” he said in an interview with ANI.
Sooryavanshi won the Orange Cap in the 2026 edition of the Indian Premier League with 776 runs in 16 matches. Next up, he’ll be playing for India A in a tri-series in Sri Lanka, set to start next week. There are also chances that the prodigy will be fast-tracked to the India senior T20 side for the upcoming series vs Ireland and England.
#WATCH | On Indian cricketer Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, IPL founder and first chairman Lalit Modi says, “… What a delight he is. He will be bigger than anybody on the planet. He will be bigger than any Hollywood or Bollywood star. He will be bigger than the Messis of this world… I… pic.twitter.com/RhbcKyiUFw
— ANI (@ANI) June 4, 2026
Lalit Modi on why he left cricket
In the same interview, Modi revealed that alleged life-threatening intimidation from underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and his crime syndicate was one of the single biggest reasons behind his decision to permanently retire from cricket administration.
Lalit detailed how his unyielding stance against match-fixing during the initial years of the IPL directly collided with the multi-billion-dollar underground betting empire controlled by the D-Company. He asserted that the syndicate operates an unimaginably vast “Satta Bazaar” where odds change with every single ball.
“Dawood Ibrahim is a known bookmaker. He controlled the cricket book. In those days, it used to be $2 billion of underground betting. Today, it’s $4 billion of underground betting a game. It’s huge. It’s unimaginably huge. Every ball, there’s an odd chance. It’s the Satta Bazaar. Nobody fixes games anymore. You fix overs. You fix the ball,” Lalit revealed.
“I have not told this story to anybody… I’m called at 3.30 in the morning… He (fixer) says, ‘You have to come and meet this guy, Baba. And you have to come now.’ I thought maybe it’s something important. So I go to Baba’s house. There, he (Baba) says, ‘You have left India, we need an IPL team.’ I said I am not even in India. Why do you need an IPL team? Whoever wants to go and buy from someone can go buy it. Moreover, I’m not even going back to India; there is a Dawood problem there. To which he said, ‘I will fix it in a minute,’” Lalit recounted.
“The intermediary then went out onto his terrace, took out a satellite phone, and allegedly dialled Dawood Ibrahim directly. “He goes on his terrace. He takes out his satellite phone and calls Dawood on the phone. Baba says, ‘Dawood bhai, Lalit bhai aaya hai. Baat karo.’ (Dawood Bhai, Lalit bhai has come. Talk to him.) I said I’m not talking. So he put the call on speaker. I again said, I’m not talking. And he (Dawood) simply says, ‘You are his friend, forget everything, it is all over,’” Lalit disclosed.
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The former IPL chief further disclosed that his refusal to comply triggered a relentless wave of coordinated retaliation across the globe, forcing law enforcement agencies to intervene.
“Bombay police recorded everything. It was chatter that came from the Bombay police. Bombay police put me on Z-security. I didn’t ask for it. All of a sudden, I had Z-security. There was a shootout outside my house in Bombay. There was a hit for me in Johannesburg. And I’m in Cape Town, which was picked up by the South African government. There was a hit on me in Montenegro, which was picked up at the Croatian border. My son was kidnapped in London on Sloane Street, right there… by a guy called Baba Avin. He lived on Park Street,” Lalit claimed.
(With ANI inputs)
