'Not doing justice to their talent': Yuvraj Singh wants Abhishek Sharma and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi in ODIs

Former India all-rounder Yuvraj Singh has said that justice is not being done to the talent of Abhishek Sharma and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, and that both should be part of India's One Day International setup. The statement sounds simple. Behind it sits one of Indian white-ball cricket's oldest and most tangled debates — which format's output should determine selection, and who should wait in the queue.

One caveat first. The available information contains no match, no series, no date, no scorecard and no ODI data for either player. This report is therefore entirely quote-driven; it contains no figure that establishes that an injustice has occurred. That is the weakest point of the argument — and the weakness belongs to the framing, not to the person making it.

Abhishek Sharma's case: structural, not emotional

Abhishek Sharma has the stronger ODI claim, but not for the reason it is usually heard. His identity is that of a left-handed opener and an IPL powerplay aggressor — a T20 profile. In the 50-over format, however, his real weapon is left-arm orthodox spin.

That is not a minor detail. In ODI cricket the biggest question of team balance is always who the sixth bowler will be. A player who can bat in the top order and also bowl eight to ten overs does not merely fill a slot; he changes the structure of the entire side. Abhishek has that dual skill. That is why his selection case moves beyond "he is a good batter" to "the team's balance improves" — and that is a solid cricketing argument, not an emotional one.

But the argument has a limit. Abhishek has not yet built a long, proven 50-over record — neither across multiple Vijay Hazare Trophy seasons nor at India A level. Hitting hard in T20 and batting through in 50-over cricket are different skills. The two-new-ball rule means new ball from both ends, which requires an opener to survive swing and seam for a far longer phase than the six-over T20 test.

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi's case: this is a question of pathway, not selection

The second name changes the colour of the debate entirely. Public reporting places Vaibhav Sooryavanshi in the domestic and IPL conversation at a very young age. It must be stated clearly here that his exact age, his first-class and List A record, and his workload data are not present in the available information — these require independent verification.

Structurally, though, the point is clear. For a teenage batter, walking straight into international ODI cricket is a technical stress test, not a reward. Batters generally peak between roughly 27 and 33, when technique, mental durability and physical maturity converge. For a player a decade short of that window, the right question is not "why was he not picked" but "in what sequence and with what safeguards should he be advanced".

There is another dimension the statement does not address — player welfare. Placing a teenage player at the centre of a senior selection controversy is itself a responsibility. Franchise cricket, domestic cricket and age-group cricket together already load a young player heavily; adding international cricket sharply raises injury and fatigue risk. That factor should come first in any selection debate, yet it is almost always absent from the public one.

What the ODI format actually demands

The central problem with this debate is that T20 reputation has been converted into an ODI selection demand without any ODI-specific foundation.

A 50-over innings has three parts. The first ten overs: new ball, swing, seam, and the opener's technique. The middle overs, roughly 11 to 40: strike rotation against spin dominates, and a batter who cannot take singles stalls the innings. The last ten overs: acceleration, with a scarce specialist slot.

T20 reputation is built mostly in the third phase. ODI selection is decided mostly by the first and second. That is the gap Yuvraj Singh's statement does not bridge — it conceals it.

India's real problem: not injustice but congestion

It is worth understanding that a talented Indian player missing out is often not selectorial neglect but selection surplus. When eight to ten credible candidates compete for three or four batting slots, leaving one out is arithmetic, not injustice.

This is not India's problem; it is the price of India's success. The deepest bench in world cricket means the opportunity cost of every developmental pick is very high.

But the same picture has a second side: India's white-ball batting group is in a generational transition. Transition windows are precisely when the cost of trying new players falls, because the settled structure is already changing. That is the unstated premise on which Yuvraj's statement appears to rest, even if he did not spell it out.

ODI scarcity: the strongest argument nobody is making

If the most solid argument in this debate is to be found, it is this: India plays very few ODIs in a year. Bilateral 50-over series between ICC events are limited, while T20 fixtures are far more numerous.

The direct consequence is that a player whose reputation is T20-built has almost no route to earning ODI experience — and without experience he cannot stake a selection claim. It is a closed loop. There are only two ways out: selectors take a calculated risk on someone, or domestic List A and India A cricket is strengthened enough that output there becomes a selection currency in its own right.

That is the strongest version of the injustice argument — and, notably, the original statement does not make it.

The IPL effect: market price and match readiness are different things

Both players' profiles are powered by the IPL, Indian cricket's largest financial engine. That fact is true on its own terms. But a basic distinction matters: a high auction price or heavy endorsement interest proves marketability under T20 rules, not 50-over readiness.

The louder the IPL signal, the more the public's assessment of a player's ODI readiness drifts. That drift is exactly what makes phrases like "not doing justice to their talent" popular.

There is a commercial contradiction here too. Of the three formats, ODI cricket is commercially the weakest. That is precisely why bilateral ODI series carry pressure to pick marketable names. Sporting logic says otherwise; commercial logic understands it. Yuvraj's statement — however unintentionally — sits on the commercial side of that tension.

Governance: selection autonomy and public pressure

Former players offering opinions is a long tradition in Indian cricket and entirely legitimate. But it must be kept distinct from the selection committee's work. Public advocacy for a player is a soft pressure — not improper, but pressure nonetheless. Nothing in the available information suggests any improper conduct, and that should be recorded explicitly.

The real governance gap is that the BCCI has no published, quantified promotion criteria for T20 specialists seeking ODI selection. When criteria are not public, advocacy fills the vacuum. Transparency protects selectors and also spares players uncertainty.

The real direction of risk

Public debate inverts the direction of risk. The claim is that India is losing talent. The actual risk is that a young player is over-exposed before he is ready.

Two risks sit on the same individual. The first is workload and over-exposure. The second is the hype cycle: disproportionate praise, then underperformance against inflated expectations, then criticism out of proportion to the outcome. That cycle is not new to Indian cricket, and every additional public endorsement raises its probability.

The other major risk is format transfer — T20 and age-group success failing to convert into 50-over output. This risk is elevated precisely because the original statement offers no remedy for it: no ODI data, no List A record, no threshold.

Conclusion

Yuvraj Singh's point sounds right, because both players genuinely show talent. But talent is not the currency of any professional selection system. The currency is format-specific, multi-season, verified performance.

Abhishek Sharma has a solid structural argument — left-arm spin that can change ODI team balance. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi has a solid development argument — but that is not a selection argument. Bundling the two into one sentence does justice to neither.

The right question is not "why were they not picked". It is when Indian cricket will publish a pathway that tells every player what the route from T20 visibility to the ODI team actually looks like. The day that route is clear, sentences like "justice is not being done" will no longer be needed.