Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s recent run-in with trouble has opened a can of worms. Everyone and their mother has an opinion on a 15-year-old acting out after getting sledged. The online world runs in absolutes. It’s either that Sooryavanshi is arrogant or has no fault at all. However, in truth, the answer lies somewhere in between.
It’s easy to look at any sportsperson’s bank balance and rubbish their struggles. But performing at the highest level isn’t easy. In Sooryavanshi’s case, it’s much tougher. He isn’t even an adult, and it’s safe to say he’s already one of the biggest cricket superstars. After Sachin Tendulkar, he’s the next teenager to show real promise, but the world isn’t what it used to be in 1989.
Prepare Vaibhav Sooryavanshi for failure
The 15-year-old has only known success until now. He didn’t face second-season blues in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026. In fact, the teenager was by far the best batter of the season. Paddy Upton, India’s mental conditioning coach and strategic leadership coach from 2008 to 2011, believes Sooryavanshi must be prepared for failure.
Upton, who played a pivotal role in India’s ODI World Cup run in 2011 and reaching the pinnacle of Test cricket, the number one-ranked team, in 2009, wants the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to build Sooryavanshi up. The 15-year-old doesn’t know failure yet. But a cricketer’s life is full of it. Tendulkar, one of the greatest cricketers, reached a milestone in just 164 out of 782 innings. You are bound to fail more than you succeed.
“For me, in terms of his on-field performance, as was repeatedly demonstrated in IPL, he’s got the right mindset to deliver on-field performance and even in the big moments. That’s pretty clear. Secondly, it’s important to give a dose of reality that nobody continues on a hot run of form. He’s had a seriously hot run of form in IPL. It’s almost impossible to expect that to continue.
So, if I were around, I would work with him to expect a few low scores, some failure, some results not going his way. It’s absolutely normal and to be expected. And there’s no way anything different to that is going to happen. It’s just a case of, when he does have a low run of form, how long does it last? How much does he get attached to it and how soon does he come out of it? And that’s up to him, to a large degree,” Upton told Sportstar.
Keep the noise out
As mentioned above, Sooryavanshi didn’t stutter in his second IPL season. But know the expectations are real. The 15-year-old will be expected to score 50 off 20 every time he steps on the field. India A’s struggles, where he’s gotten off to great starts but failed to convert, will warrant heavy criticism. People will be reactionary and claim he isn’t made for ODIs or international cricket.
He’s already been labelled the next Tendulkar. It all looks great from the outside. But Sooryavanshi can’t believe in his own hype. He can’t let the external opinions become his own. We’ve seen the likes of Prithvi Shaw and Unmukt Chand gain fame and then disappear for different reasons.
“His single biggest challenge, I believe, is how he manages the external noise away from the playing arena. And I can tell you, some of the mentally strongest, some of the best athletes in the world, who’ve got significant experience, still get derailed by external noise, external expectations, external judgement.
We’ve seen enough quickly rising young superstars in India over the last 5-6 years, who’ve had a great IPL and who’ve been labelled as the next Sachin Tendulkar or the next Virat Kohli or the next MS Dhoni. And the majority of them, we don’t see them anymore. They’ve just sort of returned to the ranks of the rest of the international IPL cricketers. And often, that is them getting caught up in the external noise, getting caught up in the expectations,” he added.
Handling fame & failure
Upton, who’s worked with Indian athletes in cricket, hockey and chess, believes handling a 15-year-old is exceptionally difficult. With the level of fame he already has, there will be several ‘yes-men’ following him around. A teenager isn’t mature enough to understand who’s out there to take advantage and who really wants to help him.
The mental coach wants the BCCI to have some experience with their arms around his shoulders and guide him. Now that he’s engaged in a physical altercation, opposition will try to goad him into conflict. He’s been taunted. Things will get to him, because he’s just 15. But it’s how he responds that will matter.
It’s natural for a cricketer to fail. It’s how they bounce back that’s important. Upton thinks the best way to prepare Sooryavanshi for what’s about to come is by preparing him for the worst, because everything will be better after that.
“And my big question was, I wonder who is working with him around that? Because that’s one thing players have identified over and over in sport is helping someone deal with sudden fame, or with fame. There’s no 15-year-old who’s able to distinguish ‘who is genuinely here to help me’, and ‘who is here just to ride on my coattails of fame for a short while’. And those people often become the deadwood that hold people down.
Listen, everyone can make mistakes. You know, he’s made a mistake by reacting as he did. It’s just hard, you know, I would be guessing what’s going on for him, what stress, pressure, anxiety is going on for him that gets him to react as he did. It is important to know who is guiding him to recover from this, learn from it, because what’s going to happen going forward, I have no doubt that a lot of opposition, particularly, the more aggressive oppositions, are going to provoke him, because they’ve seen the way he’s responded or reacted. So, he will be provoked now.
So, one of the key things is to prepare him for failure. That’s going to come, whether it comes now or later, it’s going to come. The failure is not going to be the problem. It’s how does he manage himself around the failure and around all the criticism and the noise and the stories that are going to come out when he inevitably has a run of form. So, I would prepare him for the worst and very often that’s, you know, that’s a very good starting point,” he said.
Cricket
BCCI advised to prepare Vaibhav Sooryavanshi for failure by India's World Cup-winning coach
