The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) will allow the parents of teenage cricketer Vaibhav Sooryavanshi to travel with him during India’s upcoming tour of Ireland and England in June and July. The move is intended to support the youngest member of the national squad as he begins his international career.
BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia confirmed that the board would bear the cost of the arrangement, citing the unique circumstances surrounding the 15-year-old’s inclusion in a senior national team environment.
“You see, not all national teams at the senior level have a 14 or 15-year-old in their squad. After many decades, we have someone like Vaibhav Sooryavanshi,” Saikia told PTI.
“At one point in time, it was Sachin Tendulkar who made it to the national team at such a young age. When such a young kid is part of the senior team, there are obviously a lot of issues that can crop up. Therefore, to make him comfortable and help him get used to an adult environment, where all the other players are above 18 years of age, and the team management members are also adults, we felt it would be helpful. We are doing this because we believe it will ease a lot of issues as far as Vaibhav is concerned,” Saikia added.
Sooryavanshi’s road to the Indian team
Sooryavanshi earned his maiden call-up to India’s T20I side after a remarkable IPL 2026 campaign. He finished the tournament as the leading run-scorer with 776 runs and maintained a strike rate of 237.30. His performances earned him the Orange Cap, the Most Valuable Player award and the Emerging Player honour.
Before joining the senior national side, Sooryavanshi represented India A in a 50-over tri-series in Sri Lanka featuring Afghanistan A and Sri Lanka A. During the tournament, he was involved in an on-field altercation with a host-team player that included physical contact. Despite discussion surrounding the incident, Saikia made it clear that the BCCI would not intervene in matters falling under the authority of match officials and the host board.
“A lot of things are going on in the social media that BCCI is contemplating action, etc. Do you want BCCI to step into the domain of match referee? The BCCI is not an authority, we should not intrude into the area where the match referee and the umpires are the main persons who can take any decision regarding any incident that had happened in the playground,” Saikia said.
“Whatever had happened, it was a part of the game, and the BCCI have no role to play. The role is of the match referee. If anything is going wrong, he will take a call, the umpires will take a call, and there is a system in place,” he added.
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