Sooryavanshi should write exams, play gully cricket: Former cricketer warns

Jennifer Capriati was 13 when she appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated. At the age of 16, she had an Olympic gold medal. At 18, she was in rehab and spoke to the New York Times about wanting to take her own life. Andrea Jaeger was world number two at 16 and retired at 21 with a damaged shoulder. Tracy Austin won the US Open at 16 and finished as a major before she could legally drink.

“These are not footnotes in sporting history,” writes former South African batsman Daryll Cullinan in an emotional column for ESPNcricinfo.

“They are warnings”.

Cullinan believes cricket may be experiencing the opening chapter of its own version of the same story, all centered on Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, the 15-year-old batting prodigy from Samastipur, Bihar, who took world cricket by storm.

After Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s inclusion in the senior T20I squad, the polarizing debate over selection has taken center stage. The 15-year-old batting prodigy, who plundered 776 runs to win the IPL 2026 Orange Cap for Rajasthan Royals before smashing a 29-ball 94 for India A, warmed the bench during India’s recent tour of Ireland – where India lost 0-2.

The team management justified the decision by stating they would not disturb the existing hierarchyhe preferred time for the teenager to acclimatise to the international setup before handing him his debut. This cautious approach sharply divided experts; while scholars like Ravichandran Ashwin claimed that Sooryavanshi has to wait for his turncarry drinks and respect the established culture of the team. However, several pundits like Sunil Gavaskar countered aggressively and demanded that the boy wonder be bled at the earliest possible opportunity.

Yet Cullinan argues that the very brilliance of making an international debut inevitable is exactly why cricket needs to hit the brakes hard. The reality of Sooryavanshi’s current existence shows how far the boy has deviated from a normal childhood when he famously skipped his 10th class board exams this year to play in IPL 2026.

“In my opinion – and I say this with caution, rather than judgement – he should be at home preparing for exams, playing cricket with his friends in the ravine and being a young lad while he still has the chance. This does not mean ignoring his talent. It means understanding that talent will only be truly utilized if the person who carries it is allowed to grow,” he wrote in his column.

While T20 cricket naturally rewards the uncomplicated aggression of youth, Cullinan insists that being ready for cricket does not equate to being ready for the ferocious machinery wrapped around it.

He warns that we are looking at “a child placed at the center of one of the most commercially powerful, globally visible and socially empowered sporting environments ever created: Indian cricket and the IPL”.

BEFORE THE INTERNET ERA VS NOW

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi wins the Orange Cap in IPL 2026 and tops the batting charts (PTI Photo)

Drawing on his own experience of breaking records as South Africa’s youngest first-class centurion aged 16, Cullinan notes that in the pre-internet era he at least had “gaps to breathe, to be unknown, to have a bad day”. Even Sachin Tendulkar’s 16-year-old debut was mediated and slowed down by traditional print journalism and professional editors.

According to Cullinan, Sooryavanshi enjoys no such luxury. He is trapped in an algorithmic ecosystem that has “abolished almost any distance between a child and the opinions of hundreds of millions.”

“That mediation no longer exists. Every innings, every press conference, every gesture, every failure, every heated moment on the field – and Sooryavanshi has already been a part of such a moment – can be clipped, recorded and judged within minutes by people who answer to no one,” he wrote.

“The theater used to leave the stadium at the end of the day. Now it doesn’t really leave at all.”

Cullinan points to developmental psychology and the concept of “closure,” where a single identity is firmly locked in before a child can even explore alternatives.

“Greatness at 15 doesn’t wait politely for one to catch up. It sets the frame. It fixes the image in the public mind. Everything that follows, the mistakes, the growing up, the confusion, the disappointment, the normal human work of becoming oneself, must take place within that frame. A boy becomes a legend before he has had a chance to simply be a man.”

While tennis adopted age-based rules in 1994 that severely limit professional appearances for under-18s, cricket has no structural mechanism to protect minors independent of commercial interests.

“What we should hope for is that he retires at 40 and doesn’t wash at 25,” Cullinan wrote.

To navigate this aquarium, he strongly advises a young batsman to look up to the legendary Sachin Tendulkar, who understands the suffocating weight of a billion expectations at this age:

“I sincerely hope he turns to Tendulkar for advice. He couldn’t be luckier than having a mentor in a fellow Indian cricketer who has been through it all and seen it all.”

– The end

Issued by:

Akshay Ramesh

Published on:

01 Jul 2026 20:16 IST