India T20I captain Shreyas Iyer refused to spill the beans on Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s potential international debut against England in the first of the five-match series in Durham on Wednesday. Asked directly
about the chances of Sooryavanshi playing the match, Shreays said that his ‘hands are also tied’ because he couldn’t reveal the private discussions within the team and give anything away to the opponents.
Sooryavanshi was expected to play his first international against Ireland in the two-T20I series, after being called up to the squad at the age of 15, making him the youngest to get the honor. However, the team decided to snub him, preferring the established top three of Sanju Samson, Abhishek Sharma, and Ishan Kishan, who took them to the 2026 T20 World Cup title.
After the Ireland series ended in a shock 2-0 clean sweep, where Samson and Kishan struggled, the clamors have only grown louder.
“See, you never know what’s going to happen,” Shreyas said on Tuesday. “My hands are also tied at the moment in terms of what we’re going to do, because this is very private. This is something we discuss in the team. We can’t let everyone know what combination we’re going to play and let the opponents know what’s going to happen. So definitely he’s a brilliant prodigy, and whenever he gets an opportunity to play, he’ll do brilliantly,” he added.
Asked about managing players who worry about their future while sitting on the bench, Shreyas defended the call not to drop the World Cup winners.
“Look, every individual who has played in this team has performed. It’s not like only one individual has done it,” he said. “But we have to build that security and give them opportunities so that the individual’s confidence stays high going forward into the tournaments. And the ones who have won the previous World Cup—they definitely have an idea of how to play T20s, and they’ve been the main pillars of this format consistently. So backing them is very important,” the skipper added.e
