Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: When will Vaibhav Sooryavanshi make his India debut? When will the 15-year-old play for the senior Indian team? These questions are once again being asked by former cricketers and fans. The buzz has picked up pace after the teenager hammered a 17-ball 52 in Rajasthan Royals’ opening game of IPL 2026 against Chennai Super Kings.Now, former England captain Michael Vaughan has joined the conversation and wants the youngster from Samastipur, Bihar, to be part of the senior India setup.Vaughan believes Sooryavanshi should be picked for the England white-ball tour, scheduled in July. India are set to play five T20Is and three ODIs on that tour.“When will he make his Indian debut? And I’m just looking, and I know we’re probably getting ahead of ourselves. It’s only the first innings of the IPL, but there’s a white-ball tour to England in a few months’ time. And if I was Indian cricket, I would get him on that tour. Not necessarily, he’s going to get into players that are in the team at the moment, but the one thing that he’s going to need is he’s going to need to be brought into the Indian team and the kind of surroundings of what Indian cricket is. Just bring him in, and if he plays one or two games, fantastic, but get him on a tour. Is he allowed to go on tours as a 15-year-old?” Vaughan said on Cricbuzz.“I’d be giving him a little bit of experience with that Indian team. Not necessarily, as I said, jumping straight into the side, but just having him around. He’s good enough to play. I do not doubt that,” he added.
After RR bowlers bundled out CSK for a modest 127, the spotlight once again shifted to Sooryavanshi when he walked out to open the innings.And he did what he does best — sending bowlers on a leather hunt.Sooryavanshi stitched a 75-run opening stand with Yashasvi Jaiswal and smashed 52 off just 17 balls, including five sixes and four fours, to help RR thrash CSK by eight wickets.“When you think he’s batting with someone at the other end, who I have in the last few years, he’s right up there with the best, in terms of all format players. Yashasvi Jaiswal, I think he’s a wonderful player. And I’m not saying he made Jaiswal look mediocre tonight, but there was a gulf in kind of fearlessness. You could see Jaiswal looking at the ball, just trying to play. This kid’s just looking at the ball to launch it into the stands. He just has remarkable freedom,” said Vaughan.“The two innings were a contrast. You had Sooryavanshi, who just went pure modern sixes. And I respected Jaiswal, because I don’t think he was seeing it as well as he could see it. So he didn’t just give it away. His strike rate wasn’t huge, but he’s had a little bit of time in the middle,” he added.Ahead of the IPL, Sooryavanshi had played a magnificent 175-run knock in the final against England to help India lift the Under-19 World Cup title.
