3 Youngsters Team India must back despite failures

Team India are going through an intriguing phase of growth and development. With only a handful of senior players available across formats, the senior men’s selection committee and the team management have already started investing in youth and presenting them with opportunities wherever possible.

While they have been doing the needful, they need to be patient and cannot expect immediate results. While a host of youngsters have made their debuts for India lately, three of them require immense backing from the coaches and selectors, even if they fail to produce the anticipated results for a while.

Let’s take a look at three youngsters whom India should back for an extended period of time, even if they fail to deliver immediately.

#1 Vaibhav Sooryavanshi

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi tops this list. The 15‑year‑old is arguably the most exciting talent India has unearthed in the last couple of years. Youngsters at his age primarily lack consistency, but Sooryavanshi has been remarkably consistent.

The lad from Bihar had an impressive debut IPL season, aggregating 252 runs in seven games at an average of 36.00 and a strike rate of 206.55, with the help of a century and a fifty.

He took his performance several notches higher in 2026, finishing as the leading run‑getter and breaking Chris Gayle’s long‑standing record for the most sixes in an IPL season.

The southpaw’s achievements are not limited to the IPL alone. Whether it was his blistering 175 in the ICC Men’s U19 World Cup final or the fastest fifty ever registered in List A cricket, coming against Sri Lanka A in the recent tri‑series final, he has also handled the India tag well.

Therefore, the selectors need not read too much into his three knocks (14, 13, and 15) against England and should present him with more chances. Sooryavanshi is a generational talent, and generational talents need to be nurtured with extensive care.

#2 Prince Yadav

It is very easy to dismiss Prince Yadav based on his spells in the last two games. He went wicketless and leaked 60 runs in the fifth T20I against England in Southampton and conceded 79 in his 10 overs with a solitary wicket of Ben Duckett in the ODI series decider at Lord’s.

But Prince was not the only one who got hit on those occasions. Barring Arshdeep Singh, all of India’s bowlers were taken to the cleaners in Southampton by Jos Buttler and Harry Brook. At Lord’s, all of India’s bowlers found themselves at the mercy of England.

Prince registered figures of 3/22 and 2/30 in the two T20Is in Ireland and looked promising. He is also an excellent athlete and took two impressive catches in the deep in the series against Afghanistan.

The right-arm pacer proved hard to score against in the IPL when most other seamers were being carted around for fun. Therefore, Prince needs the faith of the selection committee to flourish in the long run.

#3 Suryansh Shedge

Suryansh Shedge finds himself on this list purely because of the craft he brings to the table. He is a seam‑bowling all‑rounder, and there is a dearth of his kind on India’s bench.

India has been desperately searching for an ideal replacement for Hardik Pandya, but it has not yielded fruitful results. For a while, Nitish Kumar Reddy looked like the answer to that million‑dollar problem, but his fitness woes have compounded India’s misery.

Reddy has not been able to keep himself injury‑free for an extended period, and that has hurt India’s balance across formats.

Additionally, the Impact Player rule in the IPL is inhibiting the growth of all‑rounders. Therefore, the selectors and team management need to give Shedge a long rope, even if he stumbles in the beginning, as there are not many of his kind around.