Vaibhav Sooryavanshi Would Say ‘His Head Was Hurting’: A Never-Heard-Before Tale On Star’s Meteoric Rise

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi‘s family, and the rest of India, would be looking forward to the team sheet on Friday when the side gets down to action against Ireland in the first of two T20Is in Belfast. If Sooryavanshi is named in the XI, he will be the youngest cricketer (15 years, 91 days) to play for the Indian cricket team. Sooryavanshi has also been selected for the India T20I series against England that starts next month, and his chances of making an India debut are high.

Sooryavanshi might be making his India debut before reaching the age of just 16, but his journey has been long and arduous. In fact, it did not even begin with him; it began with his father, Sanjiv, who was a club-level cricketer from the village of Motipur, according to a deep-dive story on Sooryavanshi by The Athletic. He could not fulfill his dream but invested everything when cricket coaches said his son had the potential to make it big.

Brajesh Jha was Sooryavanshi’s first coach. “When he first came, there were very few children playing cricket in Samastipur district,” Jha says. “There was this tiny child among all the seniors… as soon as he was told something, he followed the task very quickly – how to take a stance, how to run, whatever was explained to him.”

He saw Sooryavanshi’s meteoric rise from close quarters. “When we took him to Patna for trials, in the whole area, the news spread that there was a small left-handed batter from Samastipur who had exceptional talent,” Jha says. “He was selected in the state Under-17 team at the age of eight-and-a-half.”

Batting was always his first love. “The level of toughness that he had in his practice sessions – the more I increased it, the more easily he adapted to it,” Ojha says. “His adaptability was amazing.”

“When Vaibhav used to train, if you sent him for fielding, within 10 minutes he would come and say his head was hurting. But if you asked him to even bat at night, he would never say he was tired.”

“Today, Vaibhav is scoring the fastest hundreds in T20 cricket, but I have seen the day when he played 100 balls and scored only 30 runs,” says Jha, recalling Sooryavanshi at the age of nine. “I was so happy because playing 100 balls meant he had the capacity to play 100 balls. He was facing state bowlers sometimes more than twice his age. He wasn’t making runs because he didn’t have the power yet, but he was playing 100 balls.”

Soon, from Samastipur, Sooryavanshi and his father travelled to Patna, Bihar’s capital. He went on to make his IPL debut at the age of 12. Then, at the IPL auction in 2024, Rajasthan Royals secured him for INR 1.10 crore. While many thought it a marketing move, RR knew they had found a gem and played him. He scored a 35-ball ton against Gujarat Titans. There has been no stopping Sooryavanshi since then

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