Watson in awe of Sarfaraz blitz

Shane Watson has played and watched a lot of cricket in his 16-year career, but last night said he witnessed something he had never seen before.

Watson was referring to the 35-run blitz by young gun Sarfaraz Khan, who lifted the Royal Challengers total from imposing to an unreachable 4-227 in the 45-run win over Sunrisers Hyderabad.

Sarfaraz hit five fours and two sixes in his 10-ball cameo at M. Chinnaswamy Satdium on Tuesday night, fearlessly ramping Hyderabad's fast bowlers in the final overs to send the packed crowd berserk.

"He (Sarfaraz) is an incredible young man and there is no doubt that he has worked extremely hard to get all kinds of shots right," Watson told reporters after play.

"The control over shots he has … I've never seen it before for a young talent like him.

"It shows he has practised a hell of a lot, and we saw this tonight."

Sarfraz entered in the 18th over after AB de Villiers (82 off 42) and Virat Kohli (75 off 51) destroyed the Sunrisers attack which was hampered by a groin injury to key quick Ashish Nehra.

The 18-year-old teamed up with Kedhar Jadhav to put on 44 from only 2.3 overs, taking 28 runs off Bhuvneshwar Kumar's 19th over.

Hyderabad captain David Warner said Sarfaraz's inning was "crucial" in RCB posting the huge total, shouldering the blame for not instructing his bowlers to change their game plan to the audacious right-hander.

"He (Sarfaraz) got four full-tosses and that works in his favour," Warner said.

"I am not putting blame on anyone, maybe we could have changed the pace a little bit, not bowl the same balls.

"But it was my fault as well, I should have been speaking to the bowler."

Sarfaraz was a star in India's Under-19 World Cup campaign in Bangladesh in February, finishing the tournament as the second-highest run-scorer with 355 runs at 71 in six matches.

He is the youngest player to play in the IPL after representing Bangalore as a 17-year-old, and played 13 matches in 2015.