Iyer’s new India and a record-breaking teen: the T20I side bound for England
Shreyas Iyer takes over as T20I captain and 15-year-old Vaibhav Sooryavanshi becomes the youngest player India have ever picked, as a new-look squad prepares for Ireland and England.
Jun 20, 2026
India’s white-ball summer is almost here, and the side boarding the plane looks very different from the one that lifted the T20 World Cup. Shreyas Iyer is the new T20I captain, Suryakumar Yadav has been left out altogether, and a 15-year-old who was tearing up the IPL a few weeks ago is now the youngest cricketer India have ever picked. The Afghanistan series finishes in Chennai today, and attention turns straight to Ireland and England.
Iyer inherits the captaincy
The boldest call the selectors made on 6 June was right at the top. Iyer takes over the T20I side with Tilak Varma as his deputy, while Suryakumar, who had been leading India in the format, does not make the squad at all. Axar Patel, the previous vice-captain, stays on as a senior head but hands the armband role to Tilak. This is a clean reset rather than a tweak, and it lines Iyer up to run the side through the Asian Games later in the year too.
Iyer has spent the last couple of seasons rebuilding his standing, leading two different franchises to back-to-back IPL finals and carrying himself with a calm that suits the job. Handing him the keys for a tour of England rewards a player who, not so long ago, was on the fringes of the set-up.
The youngest India have ever picked
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi is the name everyone will fix on. At 15 years and 71 days, the left-handed opener becomes the youngest cricketer ever named in an India men’s squad, going past a Sachin Tendulkar mark that had stood since 1989. If he takes the field in Belfast or England, he will also be the youngest to actually debut for India. He forced the issue the hard way, with a run of IPL 2026 scores that left the selectors no sensible way to look past him.
Picking a teenager for a tour of England is a statement, not a gimmick. The conditions will examine him in ways the IPL never could, with a moving ball and cooler evenings, and there is no guarantee he plays every game. But the selectors clearly want him in the environment now, learning on the road rather than waiting for a tidier moment that rarely comes.
A long tour for a young squad
The itinerary is a proper workout. India play two T20Is against Ireland in Belfast on 26 and 28 June, then five against England between 1 and 11 July, before a three-match ODI series in Birmingham, Cardiff and at Lord’s that closes on 19 July. It is India’s first T20I assignment since they won the 2026 World Cup, so a new-look group steps out with the champions’ tag still fresh.
Around Iyer and Sooryavanshi sits a familiar young core, with Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson and Ishan Kishan among the batters and Arshdeep Singh, Varun Chakravarthy and Washington Sundar leading the bowling. Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, both retired from T20Is, are kept back for the ODI conversation rather than this one.
It all points one way. India have a title in the bag and have decided the best time to blood the next generation is right now, on a hard tour, with a new captain setting the tone. The results in Ireland and England will matter less than what this side starts to look like.