Xplorich
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s long-awaited India debut now appears to be just around the corner. The 15-year-old batting prodigy has earned a place in India’s squad for the upcoming two-match T20I series against Ireland later this month and is also set to travel with the team for the five-match white-ball series in England in July.Whether his first international appearance comes in Ireland or England, Sooryavanshi is poised to make history as the youngest player ever to represent India in international cricket.Even before the tour begins, excitement around the teenager is already building in England. Following a remarkable IPL 2026 campaign that left selectors with little choice but to fast-track him into the national setup, Sooryavanshi has become one of the most talked-about young cricketers in the game. English media outlets and cricket discussion programmes have already identified him as one of the key attractions of India’s upcoming tour.Among those who have closely followed Sooryavanshi’s rise is former England captain Jos Buttler. The veteran wicketkeeper-batter has spoken about the teenager on multiple occasions on his YouTube podcast, For The Love of Cricket, which he co-hosts with Stuart Broad.Speaking on the latest episode, Buttler said Sooryavanshi had fully earned his opportunity at the international level.“15-year-old Vaibhav Sooryavanshi has got a deserved call-up into an incredibly strong India side. So strong that they have dropped their World Cup-winning captain. He was a serious, serious player. And while his form has not been at the same level as it was before, the next World Cup is in 2028, so they wanted that change. They picked Shreyas Iyer, who won it with KKR and then had a good effect on Punjab Kings. More than anything, his numbers with the bat have been brilliant,” Buttler said.The former England skipper also recalled a discussion with Gujarat Titans assistant coach Ashish Kapoor about the enormous attention surrounding Sooryavanshi and whether it mirrored the excitement that surrounded Sachin Tendulkar during his teenage years.Tendulkar famously broke into the Indian team at the age of 16 during the 1989 tour of Pakistan. However, Buttler pointed out that the modern digital era has made Sooryavanshi’s emergence very different.“Ashish Kapoor, one of our assistant coaches at Gujarat, and I were talking while all the furore around Vaibhav was reaching fever pitch in India. I asked him what it was like compared to Sachin because he is from that generation and grew up watching him.“He said the real difference is that everyone has seen Vaibhav. He’s not played international cricket, yet he is already so famous because of social media. Everyone has watched him bat and seen what he has done in the biggest T20 tournament in the world.“When Sachin was coming through, people were reading about him in newspapers. It was all whispers and stories about this extraordinary talent that you simply had to watch. Unless you were at the ground or happened to catch him live on television, you didn’t really see him. There were no highlights packages, no social media and none of the exposure players get today.“Vaibhav is incredibly well known already. He was the MVP of the tournament, scored more than 700 runs at a strike rate above 200. Any player putting up those numbers gets picked. He absolutely deserves his place.”At present, Sooryavanshi is part of the India A squad competing in the ongoing one-day tri-series in Sri Lanka. After completing those commitments, he will head to Ireland for the T20I series beginning on June 26 before joining India’s squad for the highly anticipated England tour.
