England’s wicket-keeper batsman Jos Buttler has opined that Vaibhav Sooryavanshi deserved his maiden T20I call-up after impressing one and all in IPL 2026. The prodigy batter ended the IPL 2026 season with 776 runs in 16 matches at an average of 48.50 and a blistering strike rate of 237.30.
He ended as the leading run-getter in the tournament and thus bagged the Orange Cap. Along with it, he was awarded the MVP of the tournament, Super Striker of the Season, Emerging Player of the season, and also bagged the award for the most sixes (72) in the season.
Furthermore, Buttler also shed light on the Indian selectors’ decision to drop their World Cup-winning captain, Suryakumar Yadav, and back Shreyas Iyer, who has impressed as a leader in the IPL.
“15-year-old Vaibhav Sooryavanshi has got a deserved call-up into an incredibly strong India side. So strong that they have dropped their World Cup-winning captain (Suryakumar Yadav). He was a serious, serious player. And while his form has not been at the same level as it was before, the next World Cup is in 2028, so they wanted that change. They picked Shreyas Iyer, who won it with KKR and then had a good effect on Punjab Kings. More than anything, his numbers with the bat have been brilliant,” Buttler said on For The Love of Cricket podcast.
Buttler revealed that the difference between the popularity of Sachin Tendulkar and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi is that the latter has got more exposure because of social media.
“Ashish Kapoor, one of our assistant coaches at Gujarat, and I were talking while all the furore around Vaibhav was reaching fever pitch in India. I asked him what it was like compared to Sachin because he is from that generation and grew up watching him. He said the real difference is that everyone has seen Vaibhav,” Buttler said. “He’s (Vaibhav) not played international cricket, yet he is already so famous because of social media. Everyone has watched him bat and seen what he has done in the biggest T20 tournament in the world.
“When Sachin was coming through, people were reading about him in newspapers. It was all whispers and stories about this extraordinary talent that you simply had to watch. Unless you were at the ground or happened to catch him live on television, you didn’t really see him. There were no highlights packages, no social media and none of the exposure players get today,” he added.
Buttler added that Sooryavanshi deserves his place in India’s T20I team after proving his mettle in the IPL.
“Vaibhav is incredibly well known already. He was the MVP of the tournament, scored more than 700 runs at a strike rate above 200. Any player putting up those numbers gets picked. He absolutely deserves his place,” he said.
India will play two T20Is against Ireland and five against England.
