Former Indian wicket keeper bat Dinesh Karthik has opened up on Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s T20I debut against England on Saturday. Sooryavanshi was finally given his T20I debut cap and he became the youngest Indian to make his debut in international cricket after Sachin Tendulkar.

Karthik feels the fans played a key role in forcing India to hand over the T20I debut to Sooryavanshi as much as the youngster’s cricketing abilities. Sooryavanshi scored 776 runs in 16 matches of IPL 2026, striking at 237.30.

“There is something called crowd funding when you come up with a new product and you want to sell it, you do that to launch the product. I think Vaibhav Suryavanshi’s ability to get into the XI has been as much as cricketing sense, also the crowds around the world saying how can he not be playing. Everyday the headlines has been when is he playing? why is he carrying drinks? He is ready to play, and eventually they had to. There is no running away from that,” he said on Sky Sports Cricket.

On the other hand, former England skipper Nasser Hussain highlighted that Sanju Samson might feel he was unfairly left out however he added it was not easy to ignore Sooryavanshi’s  performances.

“Sanju Samson may well be asking why me? I was Player of the tournament in the World Cup. I got 80 against England in the World Cup semifinal. But this lad has been so special, you just could not hold him back any longer. The story is remarkable. India do pick them young, but this is seriously young,” he stated.

Sooryavanshi’s debut was not a memorable one as he was dismissed after scoring 14 runs off 10 balls. The prodigy batter was stumped by Jos Buttler on the bowling of Will Jacks. 

The third T20I  between England and India will be played at Nottingham on Tuesday.