It was always going to be extremely hard to ignore the Bihar boy and Rajasthan Royals’s teenaged batting sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s performances when it came to picking India’s T20I squad for the upcoming tours of Ireland and England, besides the Asian Games, and chief national selector Ajit Agarkar had no hesitation in admitting this while announcing the team on Saturday.

“I think his [Sooryavanshi’s] performances have almost forced us to pick him because of how well he has played. I know how young he is and how early [he is] in his career, but, as I said, two IPL [seasons] in a row, and of course what he was doing at the U-19 level, and that’s probably a step down towards the IPL, but we can all see what kind of talent he has,” Agarkar told Sunday mid-day at the post-selection press conference.