Bihar lost all four Ranji games, and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi will captain them in the Mushtaq Ali at 15
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi is 15, and Bihar have made him captain for the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy.
Nov 6, 2026
The Bihar Cricket Association’s selectors met on Friday after three days of trials and picked a squad for the first two matches of the 20-over tournament. Suraj Kashyap is the vice-captain. It is Sooryavanshi’s first time as captain of Bihar’s senior team.
From deputy to captain
He has done the number two job before. Bihar made him vice-captain in the Ranji Trophy, and East Zone gave him the same role in the Duleep Trophy. In September he took charge of East Zone on the field for a spell while Ishan Kishan was off, and East Zone went on to win the title on first-innings lead, their first Duleep Trophy since 2012-13.
He comes back from New Zealand having barely batted. He played two of the five T20Is and made 4 and 45. The 45 came off 19 balls in the third match in Wellington on 27 October, when he and Abhishek Sharma put on 118 in the first six overs. No team had scored more in a men’s T20I powerplay.
Four games, four defeats
The side he inherits has had a miserable few weeks. Bihar lost all four of their matches in the first phase of the Ranji Trophy. Uttar Pradesh beat them by an innings and 267 runs in Rajgir, and Madhya Pradesh by an innings and 174 in Indore.
White-ball cricket is a better fit for him. In last season’s Mushtaq Ali Trophy he made 108 not out off 61 balls against Maharashtra at Eden Gardens on 2 December 2025. He was 14 years and 250 days old, which made him the youngest centurion in the competition’s history. Bihar still lost by three wickets. He has now played 44 T20s, seven of them for his state.
Bihar open against Saurashtra in Indore on 14 November.
Waiting on Sakib
One bowler is missing from the 17 names. Sakib Hussain, the 21-year-old Bihar seamer who took 4 for 24 on his IPL debut for Sunrisers Hyderabad against Rajasthan Royals in April, is not in the squad. His availability for the tournament depends on his fitness.