Where and what's the yardstick for Vaibhav Sooryavanshi ?

CHENNAI: Fifteen-year-old Vaibhav Sooryavanshi finds himself in a rather uncomfortable situation.

Before the start of the five-match T20I series against England, he was the jewel of Indian cricket. However, that jewel’s significance since then has reduced with opinions flying across the board.

And right in the middle of that storm is the 15-year-old lad. No fault of his own, nothing he can do about the situation. India gave in to popular demand and forced Sanju Samson out of the playing XI and even out of the squad at Sooryavanshi’s expense. Such bold calls usually are well-rewarded.

But somehow, with scores of 14, 13 and 15 across the three T20Is, Sooryavanshi is in the eye of the storm. It is only natural that a 15-year-old takes time to find his feet in international cricket. It is only natural that he will soon make a significant contribution. But what’s a worry is the chink in his armour that England has exposed.

While his dismissal in the second T20I against England might have been a case of a rush of blood, his dismissals across the other two clearly hint at a pattern the familiar short-ball barrage. Twice in two games, his Rajasthan Royals teammate, Jofra Archer, outplayed him with a similar plot: bowling short and targeting the ribs to put the 15-year-old in an awkward position. It wasn’t luck, and it seemed all worked out.

Three games into his international career, there’s already a need for a technical tweak. But that’s not the worry; the worry is how the BCCI will handle the delicate Sooryavanshi situation. The board certainly did not get it right when Samson (unfairly or not) was dropped just matches after he had played a significant hand in India clinching the World Cup.

"Either the player who isn't scoring quickly enough gets left out, or the one who has been inconsistent. You can't make decisions based on both emotion and logic. So emotionally, yes, it was the right call to give Vaibhav Sooryavanshi a chance," Parthiv Patel told JioHotstar.

"But if you go purely by logic, then why has Sanju Samson been left out? So, I think this decision was taken emotionally," he added.

It brings the focus back to the ‘yardstick’.

Who decides that, and how do you find consistency in that yardstick? Because if the same logic applies in Sooryavanshi’s case, he should now be dropped from the setup.

Two wrongs don’t make a right, though, and the ball is now in Gautam Gambhir’s and the BCCI’s court. It might have made a mistake in the past, but can it rectify the situation by handling Sooryavanshi correctly?

If Sooryavanshi is indeed a long-term investment, then he must be judged by that metric. And if three low scores are enough to end his run, then the selectors owe not just him but to all the talents out there an explanation.