Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s tryst with Harare

Two series, six matches. Two half-centuries, one Player of the Match award, one Player of the Series honour. That’s Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s international CV thus far after an exhilarating, whirlwind July when he took his first, firm steps towards moving from boy wonder to a man for all seasons.The 15-year-old’s inclusion in the Indian T20I squads for the twin tours of Ireland and England was welcomed with more than a frisson of excitement and expectation. There ought to have been not a semblance of discussion on whether he should feature in the squad if not for his tender age, because especially in IPL 2026, he had showcased his exceptional talent with one bruising masterpiece after another. A season-high tally of 776 runs and the Orange Cap in his first full season should have, as it thankfully eventually did, been an automatic rite of passage to the national side. If there were any misgivings at all, it was because he was 15, not 18 or 19.Sooryavanshi had battered the best bowlers in the world in the IPL, smashing them to smithereens and often instilling dread and fear as they ran in to deliver the little white orb because even the Cummins’ and the Hazlewoods, the Bumrahs and the Rabadas, knew that the margin for error was miniscule. His consistency reiterated that he was more than just a one-trick pony. He blazed to 15-ball half-centuries for fun, the sixes flowed as if there was an invisible, illegal spring in his bat (something Sanath Jayasuriya was hilariously accused of after his pyrotechnics in the 1996 World Cup) and for the first time in many years (since maybe 1988?), India was transfixed by the breathtaking audacity of a teen phenom.Not just India, of course. Such is the reach, magnetic pull and popularity of the world’s most celebrated 20-over league that global audiences were treated to the Sooryavanshi magic. To see David take down Goliath is one of the time-tested endearing subtexts to any sporting contest. Tens of thousands willed the young lad to succeed not just for the novelty value but the sheer entertainment he provided, the joy he brought with uninhibited freedom which is often professed in the dressing room but hard to put into practice ball after ball, innings after innings.Shreyas Iyer and Gautam Gambhir, the new leadership group of the T20I setup, chose to make the restless teenager wait for his baptism. Contrary to expectations that he would be blooded against the Irish in a series India were expected to dominate, Sooryavanshi watched from the sidelines as his colleagues crashed and burned to an unprecedented, seismic 0-2 defeat, their first losses to the Irish in international cricket. He was eventually handed his India cap for the second of five T20Is against Harry Brook’s England, in Manchester on July 4. His maiden outing fetched only 14 runs (off 10 balls), but there were two sixes thrown in, including one off Rajasthan Royals teammate Jofra Archer, a brief first appearance that suggested that he wasn’t out of place in the bustling cauldron of country vs country battle.Sooryavanshi’s next two outings in England weren’t productive either – 13 off 5 balls in Nottingham, and 15 off 10 in Bristol — after which he was benched for the final game at Rose Bowl in Southampton. He must have watched with mounting frustration as, on an absolute belter, the hosts racked up 257 for three and India replied with a competitive but eventually woefully inadequate 201 for eight. There is no gainsaying how Sooryavanshi would have acquitted himself; whispers were starting to surface that the short ball into the body was a kryptonite of sorts, but there is little sustained evidence to support that theory. England brought the young lad 42 runs off 25 deliveries with one four and five sixes, hardly sensational but definitely not enough to write him off.In Zimbabwe in the week gone by, however, the international game was privileged to witness the phenomenon reprise his IPL magic. Sooryavanshi has quite a tryst with the Harare Sports Club, where Shreyas’ bunch locked horns with the host nation in a three-match showdown. India had gone through seven winless games in Ireland and England, losing six with one game (the opening fixture against England) abandoned halfway through, and Shreyas desperately needed a victory against his name after a horror start to his T20I captaincy stint.Happy hunting groundHe needn’t have worried too much, as it turned out. After all, he had the ace in his pack, a young man who dug into his memory bank, dredged up happy thoughts of his time at the Harare Sports Club, and brutalised a solid Zimbabwe pace attack spearheaded by the towering Blessing Muzarabani and the left-armer, Richard Ngarava.Muzarabani, more than his left-handed counterpart, had played a big part in Zimbabwe making it to the Super 8 of the T20 World Cup earlier this year at the expense of fancied former champions Australia. Standing six feet eight inches (203 cms) in his socks, he used his height to great advantage, fusing bounce with movement to resemble a one-man wrecking ball. Muzarabani finished as the joint second-highest wicket-taker of the tournament; his 13 scalps (only one behind Jasprit Bumrah and Varun Chakaravarthy) came in only six bowls, his strike rate of 11 balls per wicket bettered among the top-five wicket-takers only by Shadley van Schalkwyk (6.84) of the United States, who also ended up with 13 wickets. He was expected to give India’s batters, who had a miserable run in England, a torrid time, but Sooryavanshi had other plans.In February, at the same venue, Sooryavanshi had made the Under-19 World Cup final against England a ridiculously one-sided affair well before the halfway stage of the contest. After Ayush Mhatre chose to bat, the left-handed opener went on the rampage, tearing into the shell-shocked English boys with utter disdain.Boundaries cascaded off his bat with remarkable regularity; he reached his 50 off 32 deliveries, took only 23 more to bring up his century, and went from 100 to 150 in a mere 16 balls. By the time he was dismissed, gloving a slog-sweep to the wicketkeeper, he had hurtled to 175, from just 80 deliveries, with 15 power-packed fours and an equal number of towering sixes. He had accounted for 69.72% of the runs India had scored (251) till he was at the crease. Sooryavanshi’s blitzkrieg ended off the third delivery of the 26th over, just past the halfway stage of the Indian innings. Who knows what he would have finished with had he batted for even a half-hour more.In Sooryavanshi’s corner on that occasion was Hrishikesh Kanitkar as the head coach, with former India left-arm spinner Sunil Joshi too travelling as the bowling/spin coach. And, of course, there was V.V.S. Laxman , the wonderfully affable and positive-talking Hyderabadi who has quietly elevated the profile of the Centre of Excellence (previously the National Cricket Academy) without getting either his due or craving for approbation and plaudits, who travelled for the second half of the Under-19 World Cup as the team’s mentor, among other things.While Kanitkar wasn’t in Harare this last week, both Laxman and Joshi were. With Gambhir and his support staff taking a break ahead of the Test tour of Sri Lanka beginning in a little over a week’s time, Laxman stepped in as the interim head coach, like he has done quite a few times in the past, with Joshi for support. Perhaps, the familiarity with the ground, previous dizzying success at the venue and a sense of ease around the coaching staff that has overseen his progress over the last year and a bit helped calm Sooryavanshi down. He was clearly in his elements, reprising the destructive avatar that made him such a compelling attraction during the IPL.India’s youngest international cricketer, male or female, became the youngest half-centurion in all T20Is when he lashed an even 50 in the first encounter on Thursday, July 23. The half-century came off only 18 deliveries, though he saw off the Muzarabani threat with commonsense rather than bravado. India were chasing a modest target of 126 and Sooryavanshi’s early blitz powered them to a commanding victory with 40 deliveries to spare, though the Player-of-the-Match award went to pacer Mayank Yadav for his spell of two for 18. After a whirlwind nine-ball 20 in Saturday’s game two, Sooryavanshi went into overdrive in the final, dead rubber on Sunday. In the clearest indication yet that he has a terrific cricket brain nestled in that young, still developing head, Sooryavanshi batted with tremendous maturity and intelligence on a worn surface where the bounce was uneven and where the ball didn’t exactly gush on to the bat.No half-measuresSooryavanshi picked the balls to attack with care and diligence, but when he went on the offensive, he didn’t hold back. There were no half-measures, his commitment to the stroke indisputably maximal. Abhishek Sharma fell cheaply again and the normally fluent Ishan Kishan struggled for timing, but Sooryavanshi seemed immune to the vagaries of the pitch.His fifty appeared measured, yet it came off just 31 deliveries; as he raced into the 80s, visions of a maiden century loomed until he fell to a wonderful catch in the deep by Brad Evans. His final returns – 81 off 49, eight fours, four sixes. As India completed a comfortable 35-run victory to seal a 3-0 series sweep, there was only one candidate for both the match and the series honours. Welcome to the world of international cricket, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi. And what’s the fuss all about, right? Laxman’s personality doesn’t lend itself to hyperbole, so when he says something, you know that that’s precisely what he means. He was glowing in his praise of the young lad, extolling his maturity and cricket smarts not just during the last week but over the last six months, from the Under-19 World Cup onwards.“He’s got a long career ahead, and he has the attitude and mindset to improve every day,” the magician with wrists of steel proclaimed. “I’m sure he will progress and break all the records at the international level. He’s got all the potential and ability to do that.”Over to you now, young man, to prove the great man right.