Dravid: Need players like Sooryavanshi to play all formats for Test cricket to grow

Rahul Dravid, the former India captain, believes Vaibhav Sooryavanshi‘s development needs to be carefully balanced, with the 15-year-old given enough exposure to white-ball cricket without losing sight of the red-ball game.

“I think you always have to find that balance,” Dravid told Cricinfo at an event in London to unveil the ETPL, where he co-owns the franchise Dublin Guardians. “And I think it’s a great thing that Vaibhav is getting the experience of playing some white-ball cricket through the IPL in India, but he’s also having the time to go back and play red-ball cricket in the Indian domestic system and grow his red-ball career.

“All of us also want to see Test cricket survive, all of us want to see Test cricket grow, and we need players like him to be able to hopefully play all formats of the game.”

That balance will be tested as Sooryavanshi embarks on a new domestic season that kicks off with him featuring for East Zone in the Duleep Trophy, the zonal red-ball competition. Dravid, who coached Sooryavanshi at Rajasthan Royals in IPL 2025, believes the opportunity to play a run of red-ball cricket will be particularly valuable for a teenager who has had limited continuity in the format.

“The good thing is he’s going to take some time, he’s going to need some experience, he’s going to get an opportunity to play a lot of red-ball cricket,” Dravid said. “He’s not played as much red-ball cricket as probably white-ball cricket.

“He’s only 15 and I think you’ve got to just give him some time and you’ve got to be patient with him. He’s obviously been such a success straightaway, right, but he’s going to go through his ups and downs and I think people are going to have to be patient with him.”

Sooryavanshi has so far featured in just eight first-class games for an average of 17.25. All those games, though, were sandwiched into a calendar at a time when Sooryavanshi was pitching for a berth in the India Under-19 set-up, giving him no continuity.

From that perspective, the Duleep Trophy should give him a run of two straight games at the very least, or three if East Zone make the final. That could potentially be followed by two further opportunities when India A host Australia A in two unofficial Tests in September.

“I think he’s going to have some success but he also might have periods where it probably doesn’t work out well for him,” Dravid cautioned. “But let’s all remember he’s only 15 and he has a long way to go. So Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, by not playing in T20 competitions all over the world, is actually playing in the red-ball Indian domestic competition. He’s growing, he’s getting better at red-ball skills.

“Hopefully someday if he does well and performs well like he has in white-ball cricket, he might become a red-ball player for India. And how exciting that would be for the world game as well.”