New Zealand seamer Jacob Duffy has warned the Indian teen batting prodigy Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, who is part of the five-match T20I series against New Zealand, which will commence on October 22.
Unfortunately, Sooryavanshi couldn’t get game time in the just-concluded five-match T20I series against the West Indies at home. However, he had a decent Zimbabwe tour and the Asian Games 2026.
Speaking to reporters in the pre-series press conference, Duffy revealed that his team had a good scouting session on how to counter Sooryavanshi in the forthcoming five-match T20I series at home.
“He’s an incredible talent. What’s amazing is that he strikes it so hard, and he does it consistently. He’s striking at 250 every game, and he’s not missing out very often. So, that is incredible in itself. Conditions here will be a little bit different for him, that’s obviously one thing for him to be challenged with. We’ve certainly had a good scouting session on him and certainly got our plans as to what we are going to do,” Jacob Duffy told the reporters ahead of the T20I series.
Further, Duffy was elated to see the veteran Indian pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s return after almost four years. It’s worth noting that the duo shared the dressing room in IPL 2026 when RCB successfully defended their title.
“He’s not the fastest guy in the world. But man, he is so skillful. He swings the ball, he hits the length immediately, he reads batters really well. He’s got the skill to change it up too. So, it was really cool to see from his team’s point of view, to be on his side and see how he goes about it,” Jacob Duffy said.
India’s T20I Squad vs NZ: Shreyas Iyer [C], Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson [WK], Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Ishan Kishan [WK], Tilak Varma [VC], Axar Patel, Shivam Dube, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Naman Dhir, Prince Yadav, Mayank Yadav, Arshdeep Singh, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Varun Chakaravarthy, Kuldeep Yadav
