RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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See the full story · 1 sourcesYoungest Player of the Match award winners in international cricket: Vaibhav Sooryavanshi second-youngest after IND vs ZIM T20Is originally appeared on Cricket News .
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KEY TAKEAWAYS:
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi won Player of the Match against Zimbabwe on July 26, 2026.
The 15-year-old is second on the all-time youngest winners list, behind Alusine Turray.
Sooryavanshi is comfortably the youngest Indian to win the award in men's cricket.
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi becomes second-youngest Player of the Match winner in international cricket
Cricket rarely stops turning to the romance of youth, and the game found another vivid example on the closing day of India's tour of Zimbabwe. A teenager who cannot yet legally drive walked off with the match award in Harare, and the record books shifted around him once more.
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi struck 81 off 49 balls in the third T20I to earn Player of the Match honours and cap a 3-0 series sweep for the visitors. At 15 years and 121 days, the knock carried the young opener into rare statistical company across the global game.
The award placed him second on the all-time list of youngest men's international players of the match winners. Only Sierra Leone's Alusine Turray, who managed the feat aged 15 years and 74 days in December 2022, now sits ahead of the Indian teenager.
MORE: Historic half-centuries vs Zimbabwe show India's wonderkid is ready for international cricket
Youngest Player of the Match winners in international cricket
Turray remains the outright record-holder after an all-round display of 33 runs and 2/24 against Cameroon. Sooryavanshi is the only other player to claim the award before turning 15 years and 200 days old, which underlines how far ahead of the field the two teenagers sit.
Player Age Opposition Performance Date Alusine Turray (SLE) 15y 74d Cameroon 33 & 2/24 Dec 2, 2022 Vaibhav Sooryavanshi (IND) 15y 121d Zimbabwe 81 Jul 26, 2026 Khalidy Jumia (TAN) 15y 294d Malawi 3/17 Sep 26, 2024 Charlie Hara-Hinze (JPN) 16y 360d Indonesia 18 & 2/23 Sep 25, 2025 Tanzania's Khalidy Jumia and Japan's Charlie Hara-Hinze complete the top four, both products of the associate game where teenagers are handed early exposure. Sooryavanshi is the lone representative from a full member nation on the list, which sharpens the significance of his placing considerably.
MORE: Full list of Player of the Match winners in each T20I and Player of the Series
Youngest to win Player of the Match awards for India
Sooryavanshi has rewritten the Indian benchmark by a vast margin. Already the country's youngest international cricketer after his debut at 15 years and 99 days, he now arrives more than two years younger than the previous holder, Sachin Tendulkar.
Player Age Opposition Vaibhav Sooryavanshi 15y 121d Zimbabwe Sachin Tendulkar 17y 112d England Ravi Shastri 18y 295d New Zealand Yuvraj Singh 18y 300d Australia Prithvi Shaw 18y 331d West Indies No other Indian has claimed the award before turning 18, which leaves Ravi Shastri, Yuvraj Singh and Prithvi Shaw grouped well clear of the two names at the summit of the national list.
MORE: 'I'm liking the vibe here' - Sooryavanshi on scoring runs at Harare after maiden international 50
Sooryavanshi's numbers demand careful reading
The gap between Sooryavanshi and the rest of the Indian list is the detail worth pausing on. Tendulkar and Yuvraj announced themselves as teenagers, yet neither arrived at the award before turning 17, and the rest of the field sits closer to the age most players make their first international appearance.
A 15-year-old placing himself second on a global list and top of a national one is not an accident of scheduling, and the shift from an 18-ball fifty in the opener to a measured 49-ball effort in the decider hints at a cricketer already learning to build rather than simply detonate.
The records might need context, but the talent behind it does not, and the more interesting question is how many similar records the teenager collects once the opposition stiffens.
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