Come this summer in the UK, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi is set to make his international debut for India. The 15-year-old has been picked for the two-match T20I series in Ireland later this month, followed by the five-match tour of England in July. Whenever that much-anticipated debut arrives — whether in Ireland or England — Sooryavanshi will become the youngest player to represent India in international cricket.
England, meanwhile, is already preparing for the arrival of the teenage sensation. Despite the series being nearly a month away, the media frenzy around Sooryavanshi has already begun, with newspapers and cricket talk shows branding him a “must-watch” attraction after an IPL 2026 season so extraordinary that it effectively forced the selectors’ hand.
Former England captain Jos Buttler, who witnessed the phenomenon firsthand while sharing the Gujarat Titans dressing room with Sooryavanshi, has repeatedly spoken about the youngster on his YouTube podcast, *For The Love of Cricket*, alongside Stuart Broad.
Speaking on the latest episode, Buttler said Sooryavanshi fully deserved his maiden India call-up.
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“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 white-ball captain then revealed a fascinating conversation with Gujarat Titans assistant coach Ashish Kapoor, during which the two discussed the unprecedented hype surrounding Sooryavanshi and how it compared to the early days of Sachin Tendulkar.
Tendulkar, himself a child prodigy, made his India debut at 16 during the 1989 tour of Pakistan. Yet Buttler explained that the social media era has made Sooryavanshi’s rise uniquely visible.
“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.”
Sooryavanshi is currently representing India A in the ongoing one-day tri-series in Sri Lanka. He will next travel to Ireland for the T20I series beginning on June 26 before joining the squad for the much-anticipated tour of England.