England vs India: Leave Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s debut in peace

Every press conference on this tour now has the same undercurrent. One is asking in one form or another when Vaibhav Sooryavanshi will finally play. Someone in the Indian setting mentions the “not yet” version. And in the next game, the question is back again, a little louder than before.

It happened once again on the eve of the second T20I in Manchester when India’s bowling coach Morne Morkel was inevitably asked if the teenager could finally play a game at Old Trafford. His answer was not a straight no. It was a more thoughtful defense to leave things as they were, built on the idea that the faith shown in older players is as important as raw current form.

“I think we also have to respect the fact that we have a number one batsman or we had our number one batsman in T20 cricket, Abhishek Sharma. You know, Sanju was a T20 World Cup player,” Morkel said on Friday.

While Ishan Kishan is the No. 1 T20I batsman and Abhishek Sharma, the No. 2, has done no harm to his reputation, Samson has struggled. He has scores of 5, 0 and 1 in the three T20Is on the British tour so far. But he remains the reigning player of the tournament from the recent T20 World Cup, a status based on unbeaten 97s and 89s when India needed him most.

Morkel’s bigger point was that you don’t let a slump destroy that confidence overnight.

“He’s had a great IPL. So as a coaching staff, I think it’s only fair to show faith and support our players,” he said.

“Yes, there’s a young man knocking on the door and it’s exciting, but I reckon not just the two players up there, but the rest of the group, it’s a good sign that we’re showing that we support you.

Buried in that last line is a broader locker room logic that’s easy to miss amid the noise of Sooryavanshi: if the coaching staff takes out a struggling older player when an undeniably exciting youngster is ready to play, every other player in that locker room will notice and write it down. Morkel seemed to be aware of this as he framed the decision less as being about Samson specifically, but more about what the continuity signals to the wider team.

It was also clear to him that Sooryavanshi’s readiness was not really in question.

“Just the way the guys welcomed him, I think it can be intimidating in the nets as a 15-year-old on the international stage. But just the few nets we had, it was very impressive,” Morkel said.

“We’re all excited to see how he does. And when he gets the chance, I’m pretty sure he’ll be ready.”

Put the two halves of Morkel’s answer together and the real message is quite simple, even if it took a few paragraphs to get across: it’s not about doubting Sooryavanshi, it’s about not wanting to be seen making snap decisions under pressure. Whether that’s the right call is a separate question. But it’s not quite the brickwork it can sound like in the soundbite.

TAIL OUTSIDE THE CLOSET

Sunil Gavaskar took a more interesting position on all this, arguing for Sooryavanshi’s inclusion while warning of what a delayed debut would do to a young player. Prior to the start of the series against England, Gavaskar was firmly in the “play him now” camp, arguing that Sooryavanshi’s ignorance of England was itself a weapon India were leaving untapped.

But with the team management showing no signs of changing course, Gavaskar’s tone shifted from advocacy to something closer to concern.

“It will put him under more pressure whenever he gets an opportunity,” he said in the first T20I broadcast.

“But at 15, you don’t think too much about the pressure. He knows that if he gets a chance in the second or third game, he’s going to have to serve almost immediately.”

That’s the paradox at the heart of this whole debate: the longer India waits, the stronger the case for playing him, but also the harder the anticipation for his first innings. Gavaskar is not so much contradicting himself as describing a trap of India’s own making.

Ravichandran Ashwin took the most controversial path in the debate and took the most criticism for it. During the Ireland series, with Sooryavanshi still uncapped, Ashwin defended the youngster’s time on the sidelines in the most literal way: carrying drinks.

“It’s worth sitting outside and watching the game as well. Let him serve the team, help, even carry water. You can learn a lot from that experience,” he said at the time.

When the comment was read online as belittling the generational talent, Ashwin doubled down rather than return it.

“I’m saying carrying water is not degrading,” he said on his YouTube channel.

“Why do people think carrying water is a bad thing? When did the ethos of cricket change?”

Strip away the online backlash, and Ashwin’s basic argument is not far from what Gavaskar has been saying with more caution: that time spent in the senior dressing room without the burden of performing is not time wasted for a 15-year-old, whatever social media makes of his water-bottle-in-hand lens.

Where all three views converge, oddly enough, is the idea that Sooryavanshi’s talent was never really in question. No one in this debate, from Morkel advocating the status quo to Ashwin advocating mandatory drinking, is claiming to be unprepared in a cricketing sense.

The disagreement is purely about sequencing and optics, when and how the debut should happen, rather than whether it should. This is exactly why the daily “will he play today?” the ritual seems more and more pointless to me. He sees management’s decision as a hurdle that needs to be resolved fresh before each roll, when in reality nothing has changed at the core of Belfast’s argument.

There was a real opportunity for Ireland to sort it out quietly, in low-stakes conditions against a side ranked far below India, without 65,000 fans and a Test-strength attack following his first international innings. That chance has passed. India lost the series 0-2 anyway, with Sooryavanshi still not out, which in hindsight somewhat undermines Morkel’s continuity argument.

But repeating that decision in public, series after series, won’t fix it. It just adds another layer of noise to whatever debut eventually arrives. Let the team management make the call whenever they are ready and let it be about the cricket rather than the crowd pressure at the time it happens.

WHAT TO EXPECT IN THE 2ND T20I?

India go into the second T20I at Old Trafford on Saturday with the series 0-0 after the opener in Durham was abandoned after their 189 for 7. The XI could remain the same as that game – Sanju Samson, Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Shreyas Iyer, Tilak Varma, Shivam Dube, Arshitep S. Harshiteep, S. Bishnoi and Varun Chakravarthy – although India may want to replace one of their front three spinners for another seamer in Prince Yadav, with the new ball expected to be moving at Old Trafford soon.

England made two changes and re-named their side early. In comes Jofra Archer and uncapped Josh Tongue will make his T20I debut in place of Saqib Mahmood and Luke Wood. Phil Salt, who strained his shoulder in the first game, has been fit and returns to the top of the order.

OLD TRAFFORD GROUNDS AND CONDITIONS

Old Trafford has traditionally rewarded batsmen who survive the new ball, with some early seam movement giving way to a pitch that settles and becomes increasingly bat-friendly as the innings progresses. The average first innings score at the venue is between 155 and 170 and the results here have tended to lean towards batting sideways in recent years. AccuWeather has a 25 percent chance of rain on game day, a number neither camp will want to dwell on after Durham.

WHEN AND WHERE TO WATCH 2ND T20I

The second T20I between England and India will start at Old Trafford, Manchester at 19:00 IST, which is 2:30 PM local time.

The telecast of the match will be available on Sony Sports. JioHotstar will provide live streaming of the game in India.

– The end

Issued by:

Kingshuk Kusari

Published on:

04 Jul 2026 10:55 IST