Indian cricket fans are expressing their ire at the team management for leaving out Vaibhav Sooryavanshi from the playing 11 for the third consecutive T20I against Afghanistan. The 15-year-old had to make way for senior opener Sanju Samson before the first match, despite being the Player of the Series in his last appearance for India in the three-T20I series against Zimbabwe, and failed to get a match here.
This means Sooryavanshi has yet to play an international match in India. Had he done so on Thursday, he’d have become the youngest cricketer in the world to play in the country. India skipper Shreyas Iyer had indicated that the team would be open to trying out new faces for the final T20I, having won the series 2-0 already, but chose to make
only one change, handing a debut to pacer Yash Thakur in place of Arshdeep Singh.
“See, there is no room for complacency,” Shreyas said at the toss. “It’s important that we stick to the moment and see to it that we are basically backing our instincts and not complicating things. Obviously, we are batting first. That doesn’t mean that we are going to go completely berserk. We need to adapt. We need to see to it that we are getting acclimatized to the situation as well. So yeah, good challenge, looking forward to it. We have made one change – Yash Thakur comes in place of Arshdeep,” he added.
Fans were not happy about the call. Both Abhishek Sharma and Sanju Samson have been in brilliant form, but many felt this could have been an opportunity to pick Sooryavanshi.
“Vaibhav Sooryavanshi has been used as a gimmick to get audiences and earn money out of ZERO competing T20 series against Afghanistan,” one fan wrote.
“Bizarre selection by this T20 team management,” another wrote. “The only exciting part of this lopsided series was Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, and he didn’t get a single game. Is everyone so insecure about their places that he doesn’t get even one game? Despite Abhishek getting two decent scores,” he added.
“Again, Sooryavanshi wasn’t played today. How do we tell them that Sanju’s time is over now? Everyone wants to watch Sooryavanshi, not Sanju,” another wrote.
“Bechare Sooryavanshi ko laate kyu ho fir (Then why do you bring poor Sooryavanshi into this in the first place?)” a fourth commented on the BCCI’s playing 11 post.
India’s playing 11: Sanju Samson(w), Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Shreyas Iyer(c), Tilak Varma, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Ravi Bishnoi, Yash Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah
