India captain Shreyas Iyer on Saturday admitted that young batter Vaibhav Sooryavanshi will have to wait for his turn to play a T20I again. Iyer made the comments after the fifth T20I against West Indies was washed out due to rain in Bengaluru on Saturday.
The match was reduced to nine overs per side because of rain. India, who were asked to bat first, were 118/5 in 7.4 overs when rain played spoilsport once again. Soon after that, the match was called off as the series ended 2-2.
didn’t get to play a single game in the five-match T20I series against , with the Indian team management continuing to prefer the opening duo of Sanju Samson and Abhishek Sharma.
“So I just keep telling him, you’ll get your opportunity. You see there are two batters who have probably won the… not probably, they have won the World Cup for you, and they’ve been consistent with their run-scoring as well.
“So, you know, if you be consistent with your processes and your mindset is a bit light, not think too much about getting an opportunity right now,” Iyer said at the post-match presentation ceremony in Bengaluru.
“I know what must be going on in his mind, especially after a phenomenal IPL season. But you have to wait sometimes, and we’ve got two fantastic openers who have been consistent throughout. And yeah, that’s the interaction I basically had with him, right from Afghanistan series,” he added.
The teenager enjoyed a terrific season with Rajasthan Royals (RR) as he clinched the Orange Cap with 776 runs from 16 matches at a strike-rate of 237.30. That eventually led him to making his senior India debut during the T20I series against England in July.
Till date, the Bihar youngster has played eight T20Is and scored 246 runs at a strike-rate of 186.36, with two half-centuries. Most recently, Vaibhav played at India’s successful 2026 Asian Games campaign in Aich-Nagoya, wherein he scored 53 runs from two matches at a strike-rate of 176.66.
will next head to , wherein they will play five T20Is, as many ODIs and two Tests. The full-fledged tour begins with the T20I series from 22 October. Vaibhav is part of the T20I squad for the series against the Black Caps.
