Rajasthan Royals opener Vaibhav Sooryavanshi won the IPL emerging player of the year award for the 2026 season after the final between Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Gujarat Titans in Ahmedabad on Sunday.
Sooryavanshi amassed 776 runs in 16 matches at a ridiculous strike rate of 237.30, and an average of 48.50. The southpaw, at 15 years and 65 days, became the youngest player to win the award, ahead of GT’s Sai Sudharsan, who won the award last season when he was 23-years-old.
Sooryvanshi also became the first player to win both the MVP award as well as the Emerging Player in the tournament’s history, highlighting the remarkable season that the teenager has had for the Royals.
RCB’s Shreevats Goswami was the first ever winner of the award in the 2008 season.
List of IPL Emerging Player of the Season award winners
2008- Shreevats Goswami (Royal Challengers Bengaluru)
2009- Rohit Sharma (Deccan Chargers)
2010- Saurabh Tiwary (Mumbai Indians)
2011- Iqbal Abdulla (Kolkata Knight Riders)
2012- Mandeep Singh (Kings XI Punjab)
2013- Sanju Samson (Rajasthan Royals)
2014- Axar Patel (Kings XI Punjab)
2015- Shreyas Iyer (Delhi Daredevils)
2016- Mustafizur Rahman (Sunrisers Hyderabad)
2017- Basil Thampi (Gujarat Lions)
2018- Rishabh Pant (Delhi Daredevils)
2019- Shubman Gill (Kolkata Knight Riders)
2020- Devdutt Padikkal (Royal Challengers Bengaluru)
2021- Ruturaj Gaikwad (Chennai Super Kings)
2022- Umran Malik (Sunrisers Hyderabad)
2023- Yashasvi Jaiswal (Rajasthan Royals)
2024- Nitish Kumar Reddy (Sunrisers Hyderabad)
2025- Sai Sudharsan (Gujarat Titans)
2026- Vaibhav Sooryavanshi (Rajasthan Royals)
Published on Jun 01, 2026
