Vaibhav Sooryavanshi sets List A fifty record after India ODI snub

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi delivered one of the most startling innings in List A cricket, and it landed on the same day India kept him out of its ODI plans. The 15-year-old opener reached fifty in 11 balls for India A against Sri Lanka A in the final of the one-day tri-series in Dambulla, then pushed on to 94 off 29 before falling in the ninth over.

That 11-ball half-century broke the List A record of 12 balls set by Sri Lanka’s Kaushalya Weeraratne in 2005. Sooryavanshi’s knock was heavier than the record itself: it contained 10 boundaries and 8 sixes, and it was his first fifty for India A. Sri Lanka A captain Sahan Arachchige ended the innings when Sooryavanshi was six runs short of what would have been a century.

The setting sharpened the contrast. The Board of Control for Cricket in India named Sooryavanshi in its senior men’s squads on June 6, selecting him for the T20 tours of Ireland and England and for the 2026 Asian Games. But when India announced its ODI squad for the England tour on the same day as this innings, Sooryavanshi was not included. The result was a familiar split in modern selection thinking: one format is eager to absorb rare explosiveness, while another still asks whether an extraordinary teenager needs more time before entering the longer 50-over grind.

Sooryavanshi’s performance also arrived in a tournament that had already positioned him against senior demands. The BCCI announced the India A tri-series squad on May 14, with Sri Lanka A, Afghanistan A and India A forming the field in Sri Lanka before the multi-day fixtures that followed. Against that backdrop, the Dambulla final became more than a flash of youth; it was a direct answer to a difficult run in the competition and a forceful reminder that India’s selectors are still trying to balance promise, durability and timing.

For Indian cricket, the innings deepened the debate rather than settled it. Sooryavanshi has already moved from age-group promise into senior selection conversation, but the ODI omission shows that selection across formats remains careful, even when a 15-year-old has just rewritten a record book.