U-19 World Cup: Suryavanshi sets new world record

• Vaibhav Sooryavanshi youngest U19 World Cup player at 14.
• Sooryavanshi took a wicket in his U19 World Cup debut.
• India beat USA by 10 wickets in the U19 World Cup match.

India’s Vaibhav Sooryavanshi entered his name in the history books on Thursday (January 15) by becoming the youngest cricketer in the world to play a U19 World Cup match. The left-handed batter from Samastipur

in Bihar was 14 years and 294 days old on Thursday when he was included in India’s playing XI for the ICC Men’s U19 World Cup 2026 match against the United States of America in Bulawayo.

Sooryavanshi, who represents Rajasthan Royals in the cash-rich Indian Premier League, broke Canada’s Nitish Kumar’s record of being the youngest cricketer in an U19 World Cup match.

Nitish was 15 years and 245 days old when he played his first U19 World Cup match for Canada against Zimbabwe in Christchurch on January 15, 2010.

In his first U19 World Cup match for India, Sooryavanshi could only manage to score 2 runs from 4 balls. He was sent back to the pavilion by Ritvik Appidi on the second ball of the third over of India’s innings in the 108-run chase at Queens Sports Club.

Vaibhav attempted to play a big shot off Ritvik’s bowling but missed the ball completely and got clean bowled.

But before his flop show with the bat, the young cricketer made headlines for his bowling. He was introduced to the attack by Indian skipper Ayush in the 36th over of USA’s innings, and on the second ball itself, he picked up a wicket.

He dismissed set batter Nitish Sudini’s wicket. Nitish Sudini was caught by Khilan Patel after scoring 36 runs from 52 balls. During his stay at the crease, he slammed four fours as a No. 7 batter.

The wicket of Nitish helped Vaibhav become the youngest Indian to take a wicket in an U19 World Cup match.

Nitish added 30 runs from 53 balls for the sixth wicket with Adnit Jhamb (18 runs from 41 balls) and 25 runs from 32 balls for the eighth wicket with Sabrish Prasad (7 runs from 17 balls) to help USA post a total of 107/10 in 35.2 overs.

For India, Henil Patel picked up 5 wickets for 16 runs in seven overs, and one USA batter each was sent back to the pavilion by Deepesh Devendran, RS Ambrish and Khilan Patel.