Former Indian Test opener Aakash Chopra reckons the Ajit Agarkar-led selection panel was forced to pick Vaibhav Sooryavanshi as the 16th player for the UK tour after the youngster had a stellar run in IPL 2026.
Sooryavanshi 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. Thus, he bagged the Orange Cap award along with the MVP of the season. He also won the Super Striker and Emerging Player of the season award.
Chopra noted that the selectors have been reluctant to pick 16 players in India’s squad but they made an exception for Sooryavanshi after he delivered a magnum opus performance in the IPL.
“Recent memory, if that is serving me right, this is the first time this selection committee has picked 16 guys. They are very reluctant to pick more than 15. They pick 15 everywhere. In fact, only 15 have been picked in the Asian Games team, and those many only have to be picked,” Aakash Chopra said on Star Sports.
“You have selected him as the 16th player here because it’s almost like you can’t ignore him. It’s gone to that stage. You can ignore a storm, but how can you ignore a tsunami? He is that tsunami,” he added.
However, Chopra is not sure if Sooryavanshi will get his chance in the playing XI as Abhishek Sharma and Sanju Samson are expected to be India’s first-choice openers.
“I am not 100 percent certain whether he would get a chance to play or not, for the simple reason that Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson, and Ishan Kishan, just put yourself in their shoes, and ask that question, that you have won the World Cup just now, and your performance has been excellent, and the one whose performance was slightly light is the No. 1 batter in the world in T20Is, but we cannot play you because we have got someone new,” he said.
The renowned commentator said Sooryavanshi will have to wait for his chances as the trio of Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson, and Ishan Kishan can not be dropped.
“That will not be justified. I cannot make that call. As a player, I cannot take that decision in whichever sense. You might keep saying that it’s good for me, but it’s not good for me, as I don’t play any other cricket. All of them are one-format players. If you snatch the one thing a one-format player has, and that too when he has won a World Cup, that conversation will be a tough one to have. So I think he will have to wait a little,” Chopra observed.
Suryavanshi scored five half-centuries and one hundred in IPL 2026 and consistently delivered for the inaugural champions.
