Picture this.
A 15-year-old kid is about to walk out for India.
And fans in Paris are scrambling for last-minute flights to Belfast.
Not Mumbai. Not Delhi. Belfast.
That's the Vaibhav Sooryavanshi effect.
The Stormont ground in Belfast holds around 7,000 people.
That's it.
And right now, organisers are sweating — because the demand is nowhere close to that number.
👉 "They'll have to put more seats," says MV Narasimha Rao, the former India and Ireland cricketer watching the chaos unfold from Strabane.
Fans from across Europe want in. For a teenager. Making his debut. In a T20I against Ireland on June 26.
Let that sink in.
If you haven't been following — here's the quick download on Vaibhav:
The boy doesn't just score. He rewrites record books.
Now here's where it gets spicy.
Rao — who played four Tests for India AND turned out for Ireland in the 90s — pulls out a name nobody throws around lightly.
Sir Garfield Sobers.
"The high backswing, the bat comes down straight, he picks up the ball very quickly. He can play every shot in the game at this young age."
That's not a comparison. That's a coronation.
Belfast might be the easy part.
Slow wickets. No express pace. Tailor-made for a kid with electric hands.
England next? Different story.
Rao's advice cuts through the noise:
"He has God-given talent. But like Sachin Tendulkar — keep your head down. Feet on the ground. He's a superstar now. That's the real test."
A 71-year-old coach.
A 15-year-old prodigy.
A tiny ground in Belfast.
And somewhere between them — the next chapter of Indian cricket is about to begin.
Rao will ring the Roy Torrens bell ahead of the second T20I on June 28. The first Indian Test cricketer awarded an MBE, honouring three and a half decades of work in Irish cricket.
Full circle. New beginning.
If Vaibhav walks out at Stormont — it won't just be a debut.
It'll be history.
That's all for now!
