Vaibhav Sooryavanshi's act sparks calls for punishment: 'I would have dropped him for Afghanistan A match'

Sanjay Manjrekar said if he were the coach of India A he would have dropped Vaibhav Sooryavanshi for the contest against Afghanistan A.

Sanjay Manjrekar, the former Indian batter, is known to speak his mind, and he's never afraid to call a spade a spade. Not many former cricketers have given their take on the 15-year-old Vaibhav Sooryavanshi almost coming to blows with Sri Lanka A players earlier this week. However, Manjrekar, on Wednesday, reacted to the same, saying if he were the coach or the manager of the current India A setup, he would have dropped the left-handed batter for the match against Afghanistan A to teach him a lesson.

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi was involved in a heated altercation with Sri Lanka A players on Monday (Screengrab - SonyLiv)

Earlier this week, tempers flared in the fourth match of the Tri-Nation A series between India A and Sri Lanka A. Following the conclusion of the Super Over, which ended in a Sri Lanka A win, the cameras caught Sooryavanshi charging back towards the opposition camp and shoving Vishen Halambage. After the incident, it also emerged that Halambage had been sledging Sooryavanshi since the start of the Tri-Nation A series.

However, Manjrekar said that getting physical on the field of play is never done, and there are certain lines that one should never cross. He also added that no matter how much one is provoked, one cannot answer back by shoving the concerned player.

“If I was India A coach or manager I would have left Vaibhav Suryavanshi out for this game v AFG. Only to let him know that’s it’s not OK to get physical on the field. Whatever the provocations,” Manjrekar wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

On Monday, it was reported that Halambage charged towards Sooryavanshi after Sri Lanka A's win, and he also advanced at Suryansh Shedge. It was then that the young left-hander responded, and Niroshan Dickwella had to step in to diffuse the situation.

According to Cricbuzz, Halambade sledged Sooryavanshi during the opening match of the Tri-Series and continued doing so in the second game as well, when India A batted first.

“Go home, this is not the IPL,” Halambage told Sooryavanshi, according to Cricbuzz.

Sooryavanshi's poor returns continue

The left-handed batter's struggles continued on Friday as he rode his luck to only score 38 off 28 balls. He was dismissed for a duck, but the replays showed that the Afghanistan A fielder didn't catch the ball properly. Then moments later, another catch was dropped.

But as soon as Sooryavanshi started to hit the top gear, he ended up throwing his wicket away and walked back to the hut after scoring 38. The youngster who entered the series on the back of a strong IPL 2026 season hasn't scored a single fifty in the ongoing Tri-Nation Series, returning with scores of 14, 44, 21 and 38.

Sooryavanshi was also recently named in the Indian senior squad for the upcoming T20I series against Ireland and England, and in doing so, he broke Sachin Tendulkar's 36-year-old record to become the youngest-ever player to be named in the Indian senior team.

The 15-year-old earlier won multiple awards in the IPL 2026 season after scoring 776 runs in 16 matches at a strike rate of 237.31.