Vaibhav Sooryavanshi will obviously play international cricket at some point, but India should be judicious about the timing of his debut.
“Is this the end of my career?”
In IPL 2025, Sooryavanshi did not merely smash a 35-ball hundred: he did it against Ishant Sharma, Mohammed Siraj, Washington Sundar, Prasidh Krishna, Rashid Khan – five Test-quality bowlers with over a thousand international wickets between them.
Jos Buttler had heard of Sooryavanshi before. A boy hitting his first ball in the IPL for six is bound to hit the news cycles. But on this night, he had the best view of them all, from behind the stumps. Buttler had been opening batting for the Royals not too long ago: Sooryavanshi had – not directly but in a way – usurped his position. “He’s 20 years younger than me,” thought Buttler. “Is this the end of my career? Am I actually watching my career burn in front of me?”
Buttler was not alone. When Gujarat met the Mumbai Indians a week later, Trent Boult had a word with Buttler: how to plan for this boy wonder?
It is not every day that one of the greatest T20 bowlers of all time asks one of the greatest batters before preparing for a boy of 14.
It has been nearly a year since then. Between then and the 2026 IPL (which he started with a 15-ball fifty), he played two astonishing innings in the U19 World Cup semi-final and final, hit hundreds in Youth ODIs in England and Australia, became the youngest to hit a List A hundred (in 36 balls, of course), and … turned 15.
The last bit is significant, for it made him eligible to play international cricket. The voices that had been calling for his Test cap were now validated by the ICC Playing Conditions. That he should (or will) play for India is not a matter of doubt: the only question is when.
Is Sooryavanshi ready?
Sooryavanshi had been making waves even in 2024, but that was mostly in age-group cricket. Royals director Zubin Bharucha needed to assess him separately at the franchise academy at Talegaon. After watching Sooryavanshi treat rapid pace from high release points with disdain, a stunned Bharucha asked the Royals to set ten crore rupees aside for a boy he assessed as “Jaiswal multiplied by two already”.
The Royals did not hesitate to blood the 14-year-old into their first XI. Now, it can be argued that the IPL provides a sterner test than T20 Internationals. While the best T20I sides are probably stronger than the strongest IPL team, it flips once one compares the fifth-best or seventh-best sides. The relentlessness of the IPL schedule can be more gruelling than bilateral T20Is, which are often context-free contests where teams do not hesitate to rest key players.
If Sooryavanshi is so obviously IPL-ready, there is no reason for him not to be T20I-ready as well. After the IPL, India will be touring Ireland for two T20Is: if he continues to make waves even in IPL 2026, the cries to include him in the XI will get even louder, and rightly so.
The problem is, this is India we are talking about – and as of 2026, India are the greatest side in men’s T20I history. They have now gone through 16 series (bilateral or multi-nation) unbeaten. Over this period, they have won 61 games (including three decided by Super Overs) and lost nine, and lost one game while winning two T20 World Cups and a T20 Asia Cup. To maintain such consistency in a format prone to upsets is near-unfathomable.
To break into this side, Sooryavanshi must replace one of India’s incumbent top three: Sanju Samson, Player of the Tournament at the T20 World Cup; Abhishek Sharma, the best T20I batter of 2025 by some distance; and Ishan Kishan, whose stunning form has catapulted him from domestic cricket to a World Cup winner in the space of months.
When India won the World Cup, each of them hit fifties while striking at above 193 in the final. The three, between them, outscored New Zealand. Samson and Kishan keep wicket, while Abhishek can be called upon to bowl. Any of them will walk into any other side of the world.
When Sooryavanshi plays for India – he obviously will – he will have to prove himself as better than at least one of these three. Unless there is an injury, there will also be emotions to deal with: since none of them play the other formats, “resting” any of them will not be an easy job for the selectors or the team management. It is also worth remembering that Jaiswal was not in the T20 World Cup side despite a T20I strike rate of 164, as was Shubman Gill, Test and ODI captain in a country that prefers one leader across formats. They are part of the pipeline, while Tilak Varma is waiting to recapture that one-drop slot.
Still, the Ireland series is a great opportunity to blood him as part of a second-string XI, as are the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games later this year. However, unless he really takes off, it will probably remain a token debut: a sustained streak is likelier only if his ascent coincides with the decline (or an injury) of the existing trinity. As it often happens, the voices calling for his debut at this point will begin to fade.
A word of caution
Sunrisers Hyderabad gave Umran Malik a cap in 2021 only after they were out of reckoning for a playoff berth. It was immediately obvious that Umran was the fastest bowler in the country. Without playing in the Ranji Trophy, he leapfrogged his peers and made his first-class debut for India A, and soon played limited-overs cricket for India. In 2026, he is just another fast bowler in the Indian circuit.
Before Umran, Manpreet Gony’s first T20 game was in the 2008 IPL. He played for India in the 2008 Asia Cup, and his international career lasted two ODIs. Rahul Sharma had a similar rise during the 2011 IPL: four ODIs and two T20Is later, he was gone.
But let us go further back. Nine cricketers have played for India Men in any format before adulthood – in other words, before turning 18. Vijay Mehra, Maninder Singh, Chetan Sharma, L Sivaramakrishnan, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Parthiv Patel, and Piyush Chawla faded out after their early peaks. Some of them made fleeting returns. Others did not.
After early failures and disciplinary issues, Harbhajan Singh had contemplated moving to the USA to become a truck driver. Anil Kumble’s injury allowed him to return as the only capped spinner of the XI against Australia in 2000/01 – and have a dream series from which he never looked back. While a bowler of the highest calibre, a slice of luck went his way as well.
The ninth minor male Indian international, Sachin Tendulkar, has given enough reason to be considered an exception and not the rule.
What goes wrong? Each of them was obviously born with unusual cricketing skills, found success early in their careers, and got their India caps before tasting a major failure. They were unable to bounce back when failure at the highest level hit them for the first time, and they had to return to domestic cricket.
The slide from high-profile glamorous cricket to domestic cricket in empty stadia, often on inferior pitches while being at the mercy of umpires who are not scrutinised by the television camera, demands adjustments that many are unable to cope with.
While picking Sooryavanshi, that is something that needs to be kept in mind. It will be as much about his cricketing abilities as it is about the mind of a 15-year-old.
