As if calls for Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s India debut were not growing louder already, the youngster has now been backed to break into the Test team. Sooryavanshi is just 15, and considering what he has achieved in the last year, former cricketers cannot wait to see him don the Indian jersey. He has mostly played T20 cricket, with a bit of ODIs here and there. Red ball cricket is the format he has featured in the least. With only eight First-Class matches, but a few Youth Tests to his name, Sooryavanshi can surely become an India Test prospect in the long run, but for the moment, he is best suited to the format in which he has excelled the most.
Yet, Zubin Bharucha, Sooryavanshi’s mentor and the man responsible for bringing him to the Rajasthan Royals, strongly believes that giving the youngster an India debut is what is best for business. Bharucha’s mind harks back to 1989, when the BCCI put its faith in a young Sachin Tendulkar, handing him his Test cap against Pakistan. The rest, as they say, is history. Only by throwing Sooryavanshi into the deep end can one truly judge the 15-year- old’s level-headedness.
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“That’s a difficult one because, honestly, if you look at it from any sort of metric – score, strike-rate, run scored – he is already ahead of so many people waiting in line. I actually feel they need to take that leap of faith, as they did with Sachin Tendulkar, and blood him straightaway,” Bharucha told Wisden.
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While there is not an iota of doubt about Sooryavanshi being tried in Test cricket, Bharucha feels there is a lot more to the youngster than just being an opener. Sooryavanshi has opened throughout his career, but according to his mentor, his true potential lies in the lower middle order, positions currently occupied by Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja in India’s Test setup. With a few technical tweaks, Sooryavanshi could be destined for greatness.
Is Sooryavanshi ready for Test cricket?
“My belief is that technically, he doesn’t commit himself enough. He is always on the back foot, and that to me is the holy grail of batting. So when the ball is moving, if you don’t commit your front foot, that is talking about the greats of the greats. The question is whether we can get him to follow the same sequence when the ball is moving. I also feel that opening isn’t his calling. He has so much more to offer that we would be amiss to say that go into the opening slot straightaway,” Bharucha added.
“I won’t put him at 4 at the moment. He is slightly behind that. 5-6 number, where he can come in potentially in the 60th or the 70th over, pile on a quickfire 40-50. Then maybe when the new ball comes somewhere along the way and he learns to manage that. My long-term thought is that if we are able to make him understand the nuances of the moving ball, how he combats that in various combinations. For example, if there’s a Test match in Bengaluru, he can still open and score runs, but if he’s going to Leeds or somewhere else, where you can’t see the ball with all the members hovering around, that might be a challenge.
“Still, over time if he figures it out, he would be equally devastating at the top as he would be as he would be down the order. That would be the final piece in the jigsaw.”
