Vaibhav Sooryavanshi

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi (born March 27, 2011, Tajpur, Bihar, India) is a teenage Indian cricketer who bats left-handed and plays for Bihar in domestic cricket and for the Rajasthan Royals (RR) in the Indian Premier League (IPL). He is known as a teenage prodigy because he made his Ranji Trophy debut at age 12, signed an IPL contract at 13, and became both the youngest player and the youngest centurion in the league’s history. On July 4, 2026, Sooryavanshi, aged 15 years 97 days, played in his first Twenty20 international against England, becoming the youngest Indian player to make his international debut. He broke the records set by Shafali Verma (in women’s cricket; 15 years 239 days) andSachin Tendulkar (in men’s cricket; 16 years 205 days).

Early life and career

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi was born to Sanjiv Sooryavanshi, a farmer, and Aarti Sooryavanshi, a homemaker. His father was an amateur cricket player in his youth and recognized Vaibhav’s talent and skills early on. At the age of nine, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi began training under former Ranji Trophy player and professional coach Manish Ojha in Patna, the capital city of Bihar. Sooryavanshi and his father would regularly travel more than 60 miles (100 km) from their village to Patna to train at the academy. Their efforts paid off when Sooryavanshi became the second youngest debutant, after S.K. Bose in the 1959–60 season, for Bihar in the Ranji Trophy in 2024.

In 2024 Sooryavanshi was called up to the Indian under-19 team, and he scored a century (100 runs) off 58 balls on his debut in a youth Test match against the Australian under-19 team. Sooryavanshi played for India A (the second-tier national squad) at the Twenty20 (T20) cricket 2025 Rising Stars Asia Cup in Doha, Qatar, scoring 144 runs off 42 balls in a match against the United Arab Emirates. He also made his domestic T20 debut in November that year, playing for Bihar in a match against Rajasthan in the 2024–25 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (India’s domestic T20 competition). At 13 years and 241 days, Sooryavanshi became the youngest player in the world to play in cricket’s shortest format.

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Franchise career

The Rajasthan Royals, an IPL team, signed Sooryavanshi for 1.1 crore rupees (about $130,000) at the IPL 2025 mega auction in November 2024. He was 13 at the time and became the youngest player to receive an IPL contract.

On his IPL debut for RR on April 19, 2025, Sooryavanshi opened the batting with Indian cricketer Yashasvi Jaiswal against the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG). At 14 years and 23 days old, Sooryavanshi became the youngest player in IPL history. In the same season, he became the fastest Indian centurion in the IPL, reaching the 100-run milestone in 35 balls against the Gujarat Titans (GT). His score of 101 runs off 38 balls also made him the youngest player to score a century in men’s T20 cricket.

In IPL 2026 Sooryavanshi scored 103 runs off 37 balls against the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) and became the youngest player to score 1,000 runs in T20 cricket.

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Youth and international career

By 2025 Sooryavanshi had become a regular pick for the Indian under-19 squad. He was one of the top performers at the 2026 ICC Under-19 Men’s Cricket World Cup, finishing as the tournament’s second highest run scorer and winning the Player of the Tournament award. In the final against England, Sooryavanshi scored 175 runs off 80 balls and helped India win the match by 100 runs to claim its sixth under-19 World Cup title.

Following his T20I debut in the series against England in July 2026, Sooryavanshi scored his first half-century (50 runs in an innings) for India during the first T20I in a series against Zimbabwe later that month.

Age dispute

In a 2023 interview, ostensibly at the age of 12, Sooryavanshi said that he would turn 14 in September of that year, which would mean that he is about 18 months older than his officially recorded age. His father denied these claims and said that Sooryavanshi had undergone a bone density test overseen by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI; the country’s governing body for the sport) when he was about 8 years old, which had verified that his biological age matched official records. Since 2012, because of the problems of inconsistent or unavailable birth records, the BCCI has mandated the use of medical age verification for players under 16.