At 15 years and 99 days, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi became the youngest debutant for India in international cricket. Shreyas Iyer confirmed his arrival at the expense of Sanju Samson, who was the player of the tournament when India won the T20 World Cup a few months ago. India won the toss in Manchester and chose to bat which means the youngster will be right in the thick of things.
England had named their XI on match eve. Captain Harry Brook mentioned he would’ve liked to bat as well. “Done a little bit,” he replied when asked about doing homework on Sooryavanshi. “We’ve been thinking about some tactical decisions. It’s about executing it on the day”.
Jofra Archer, who was an unwitting ally in creating the storm around Sooryavanshi when their IPL franchise, the Rajasthan Royals, put out a video of him facing the fast bowler in the nets in 2025, made his return to the England XI and Josh Tongue was handed a first T20I cap of his own with his partner and son present at the huddle. Saqib Mahmood and Luke Wood have been left out.
England have fond memories of playing at Old Trafford, having previously scored over 300 in a T20I.
India: 1 Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, 2 Abhishek Sharma, 3 Ishan Kishan (wk), 4 Shreyas Iyer (capt), 5 Tilak Varma, 6 Shivam Dube, 7 Harshit Rana, 8 Axar Patel, 9 Ravi Bishnoi, 10 Arshdeep Singh, 11 Varun Chakaravarthy
England: 1 Phil Salt, 2 Jos Buttler (wk), 3 Harry Brook (capt), 4 Jacob Bethell, 5 Tom Banton, 6 Sam Curran, 7 Will Jacks, 8 Liam Dawson, 9 Adil Rashid, 10 Jofra Archer, 11 Josh Tongue
