He Would Have Taken Their Pants Off’ Unfiltered Ravi Shastri Slams Team Management For Benching Prodigy Vaibhav Sooryavanshi

Former India head coach Ravi Shastri has strongly criticized the team management’s decision to keep 15-year-old batting sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi on the bench during the recent T20I tour. Speaking passionately on the Sony Sports Network pre-show ahead of the opening T20I against England in Durham, a vintage, unfiltered Shastri argued that the newly crowned IPL 2026 Orange Cap winner should have explicitly made his international debut during the preceding series against Ireland. Shastri’s explosive remarks came right after a reconfigured Indian side suffered a shocking 2-0 series defeat at Malahide, marking Ireland’s first-ever bilateral series victory over the Men in Blue.Lashing out at the think tank’s rigid preference for continuity over raw form, Shastri insisted that the tiny boundaries and conditions in Ireland were tailor-made for the teenager’s explosive, uninhibited style of play. “Arrey, woh khelna chahiye tha yaar! It was such a slow and spongy track. He would have smacked them on the terrace; it was such a small ground. He would have taken their pants off.

He should have definitely played there,” Shastri stated bluntly. The former coach emphasized that Sooryavanshi is a pure X-factor who plays without any historical baggage or fear, capable of dismantling any bowling attack within the first three overs to hand the middle order an unassailable advantage.Despite the mounting pressure from pundits and fans alike, the Gautam Gambhir-led team management has continued to take a patient approach, preferring to back established T20 World Cup heroes like Sanju Samson and Abhishek Sharma at the top of the order. While Samson has faced heavy public scrutiny after a string of low scores on the UK tour, the management maintains that young players must wait their turn rather than letting recent IPL glamour disrupt long-term team stability. With the first T20I against England washed out and four matches remaining in the series, cricket enthusiasts are waiting to see if the team management will finally give in to Shastri’s demands and hand the Bihar prodigy his much-anticipated India cap.