East Zone selector Manish Vardhan has revealed that Vaibhav Sooryavanshi has been handed over the vice-captaincy role for Duleep Trophy to observe and learn how a team is run. Sooryavanshi, who has taken the cricketing world by storm, will be the deputy for Ishan Kishan, who will lead East Zone in the Duleep Trophy.

The duo recently played together in the three-match T20I series against Zimbabwe and England. Meanwhile, Kishan has all the leadership experience under his belt and led Jharkhand to glory in the Syed Mushtaq Ali trophy in the previous season and thus Sooryavanshi can learn a lot by him under him.

Meanwhile, Sooryavanshi has so far featured in only eight first-class matches, but he hasn’t yet ignited a fire in the red-ball format, scoring 207 runs in 12 innings at an average of 17.25, with a best of 93. Sooryavanshi had hogged the limelight after he ended IPL 2026 as the leading run-getter in the tournament with 776 runs in 16 matches for the Rajasthan Royals.

The youngster recently scored 151 runs in three T20Is against Zimbabwe after a slow start against England and was awarded Player of the Series against the Chevrons.

“We are not thinking about the present alone,” Vardhan said on ESPN Cricinfo. 

“A vice-captain gets to observe the captain closely and understand how a team is run. We wanted Vaibhav to be more involved with the group because we think it will help him as he develops.

“He’s an extremely talented cricketer and is maturing steadily. Giving him this responsibility is another part of that process.”

Vardhan revealed that their intention to appoint Sooryavanshi as vice-captain is to help him learn about the leadership role.

“The vice-captain’s role isn’t about status,” he said. “It’s about what a young player can learn while working alongside the captain.”

East Zone squad

Abhimanyu Easwaran, Sudip Gharami, Mohammed Shami, Mukesh Kumar, Shahbaz Ahmed, Suraj Jaiswal, Ishan Kishan (capt), Vaibhav Sooryavanshi (vice-captain), Virat Singh, Kumar Kushagra, Shikhar Mohan, Subranshu Senapati, Abhijit Sarkar, Anukul Roy, Denish Das