Around 70 kilometers from Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s hometown in Samastipur, Bihar, lies the Ashoka Cricket Academy in Begusarai, run by Satya Setu’s father. Satya, 23, has been playing age-group cricket for Jharkhand for nearly a decade, starting out at around the same age Sooryavanshi is now. There are multiple videos on the academy’s Facebook page of the boy wonder toying with bowlers in the nets, from a timeline before he had announced himself on the world stage by slapping Shardul Thakur over extra cover for that first-ball six in the IPL.
Since then, Sooryavanshi has pushed the limits of what was considered humanly possible on a cricket field. Perhaps you can even drop the cricket field filter. The slow but sure tilt of the game’s balance in favour of batters over bowlers received a decisive push at the hands of the 15-year-old in the IPL this year. Legendary exponents of their craft like Jasprit Bumrah and Pat Cummins were treated with a level of disdain that has almost reduced the craftsmen to fillers.
Sooryavanshi did not begin the shift, but today, he is its clearest embodiment, heralding a change that is shaping behaviour lower down the pyramid. Kids at the Ashoka Cricket Academy have their priorities straight: teach us six-hitting. “We used to be told as kids to leave the balls outside off and play the balls on the stumps with a straight bat. The children who are coming now say, ‘All this is fine, but please teach me how to hit sixes’,” Satya recounts.
“They are asking the coaches how to improve their strokeplay, their rotational strength, what kinds of drills to do to build a power game. And the drills have evolved too. Now we see more drills for lofted shots, for improving the bat-speed.”
It’s a reflection of cricket’s natural evolution. With every generation, the grammar of the game changes a little. Defensive prods have given way to lofted inside-outs. Anchors have learnt to accelerate. Slower balls have become more frequent than stock balls. And success is increasingly starting to look immediate, explosive, and visible.
The mushrooming state T20 leagues are a hotbed for IPL franchises to look out for talent. Most of these leagues now have dedicated broadcast deals with the biggest sports broadcasters of the country, streaming grassroots talent live into the homes of millions of Indians, where one fiery cameo or rapid spell can propel a youngster into relevance overnight. In an economy increasingly tilting towards the shortest format, the youth is adapting accordingly. “T20 is the future,” Satya says matter-of-factly. “People are preparing differently at the grassroots level now.”
Perhaps then, it was only a matter of time before institutions adapted too. Earlier this year, the BCCI altered a crucial rung in India’s developmental ladder. The State Under-23 one-day tournament and the Vizzy Trophy, an inter-zonal university competition, have both been transformed from 50-over to 20-over formats.
While the change may appear procedural on paper, in practice it means that India no longer has a national 50-over competition between U19 cricket and Vijay Hazare Trophy, or a national University-level 50-over tournament. It begs the question: if the system itself is restructuring around the shortest format, what happens to the development of one-day skills, and perhaps, to the kinds of cricketers India produces?
To understand why this change matters in the first place, it is worth understanding what’s at stake.
The U23 stage is a peculiar, but crucial one in the Indian domestic system. Unlike the U19 pathways, not every major cricket playing country has a dedicated U23 pipeline. Age group cricket in both Australia and England, for example, stops at the U19 level. But the sheer volume of participants in Indian cricket means it cannot afford that luxury. Here, the U23 level provides an often decisive bridge between promise and profession – between U19 cricket, where talent is identified, and senior domestic cricket, where careers are made or lost.
The jump from U19 to U23 is not trivial either. At the U19 level, players largely compete against peers of similar physical maturity. At U23 level, they find themselves up against older, stronger cricketers, often sharing dressing rooms with Ranji Trophy players and confronting bowling attacks closer to the gold standard.
Ahaan Poddar has represented Haryana and Gujarat at U23 level. Gujarat’s highest run-scorer in the last two seasons of State U23 Trophy, he calls the platform “the perfect bridge” between junior and senior cricket.
“There’s quite a big difference between U19 state and U23 state level,” Poddar says. “There’s a big difference in the physical part of the game, especially in white-ball cricket. At U23, there are always five-six guys who can take you apart and bowlers who are much quicker.”
For Poddar, the U23 platform worked exactly as intended. Vijay Hazare Trophy selection ensued, and he felt he had enough miles in his legs. “I was very well prepared because I had played U23 for two years.”
Guru Kedarnath, who coached Tamil Nadu U23 to both the Col CK Nayudu Trophy and State U23 Trophy last season, echoes the sentiment.
“This stage is very, very important,” Kedarnath says. “Once you cross U19, there is a big gap. Players at this stage are not finished products for senior cricket. The idea is to expose them to the rigors and competition of top-flight cricket. This is a developmental phase. It is a key bridge between U19 and senior cricket.”
The Vizzy Trophy has occupied a different, but equally important, space in the ecosystem. Unlike State U23, which largely featured players already inside recognised state structures, the inter-zonal university competition has often acted as a rescue route for either late bloomers or aspirants who had slipped through the cracks.
Niraj Odedra, who coached West Zone in the latest edition, likens the difference to chalk and cheese.
“These guys are very raw,” he says. “They’ve been playing cricket for long, but maybe somewhere along the way, they didn’t get that recognition. And when you don’t have that recognition, the players act in a different way, and you have more work to do as a coach. Even though they’ve been playing cricket for long, they never had deeper insight into ‘real’ cricket, like first-class cricketers or those from recognised associations have.”
The tournament has historically offered that avenue. Asaduddin Owaisi, one of India’s most recognisable politicians, was once a Vizzy Trophy cricketer, serving as a reminder of the unlikely and often overlooked routes through which the competition has fed into Indian cricket.
There are more conventional success stories too. Among the top ten run-getters of Ranji Trophy 2025-26, Kunal Chandela shot into the limelight through university cricket. Two triple centuries in a row in Vizzy Trophy 2015-16 helped him break into a strong Delhi set-up, and recently he captained Uttarakhand to their maiden Ranji semi-final.
If the significance of the platform these tournaments provide is relatively uncontested, what is more debatable is the role 50-over cricket had begun to play within it. For years, State U23 Trophy served as India’s closest simulation of senior one-day cricket, effectively functioning as a dress rehearsal for Vijay Hazare Trophy.
Yet, over the last few seasons, the tournament itself appeared to be evolving. Scoring patterns shifted sharply. The average run rate climbed from 4.9 in 2023-24 to 5.6 in 2025-26. Massive totals became a norm rather than the exception. The change was sudden and significant, a microcosm of a broader transformation across the sport where 50-over cricket was beginning to resemble an extended version of T20.
That puts into perspective the BCCI’s decision. If modern one-day cricket was already drifting closer to T20, perhaps the shift merely formalises a reality the system was already adapting to. But one query remains: will something developmental be lost in the process?
For many players and coaches, the concern is not necessarily about preserving 50-over cricket for nostalgia’s sake. It is about the eigen skills the format teaches at a fundamental level. Unlike T20s, where urgency governs almost every decision, one-dayers occupy a middle ground which demands aggression, but also restraint; flexibility, but also planning.
Young batters learn how to build innings across phases; bowlers learn how to construct spells rather than merely survive them. It provides the rudimentary technical and tactical building blocks which allow for shapeshifting later on an ad hoc basis. According to Satya, that middle ground will be compromised in the absence of 50-over cricket at U23 level. He speaks from experience, having earned a Ranji debut in 2020 after a breakthrough season in U19 Cooch Behar Trophy.
One-day cricket asks batters to navigate shifting demands within an innings. An opener facing the new ball from both ends cannot always afford to tee off. Middle order batters may have to arrest collapses and finishers might have to hit a reversing ball. The challenge is not merely scoring runs, but understanding how and when to score. These are endangered aspects in T20 cricket, which, as the legendary Greg Chappell pointed out, “has increasingly become a game of boundary-hitting and very little else”.
Kedarnath sings from a different hymn sheet than Satya. “I don’t think the skills will die. That’s the beauty of our game. Adaptability is the name of the game. The engagement in four-day cricket will take care of the adaptation issue in 50-over format.”
Ravi Kumar, who represented India at U19 World Cup 2022 and Bengal at U23 level, presumes a paradigm shift that may leave archetypes in its wake. “Not every batter has a T20 game naturally. Some players build the innings, score through ones and twos, and make 50 off 40 balls. But in T20 cricket, you need 80 off 40 balls. That creates pressure. Some players will adapt, but some players might get lost as well.”
The evanescence of players during the transition from age-group to senior cricket is a recurring theme. Ahead of U19 World Cup 2016, Rahul Dravid had talked about how U19 should be the launchpad to an illustrious career rather than its finest hour. The woe is that now certain individuals might have an even narrower path ahead.
This is not to suggest that technically sound and naturally sedate batters will disappear altogether, but they may find fewer opportunities to develop after U19s, thereby limiting their ability to cater to the readiness that senior teams expect.
Much like batting, one-day cricket demands a broader tactical range from bowlers. They must adapt to changing phases of the innings and dynamic match situations. Possessing the skillset to use an ageing ball helps. They are not merely asked to survive a quota of four overs, but to perform different jobs across their multiple spells.
As per Ravi, T20s are hard on the central nervous system. “We just have to bowl four overs with full effort. So our intensity is very high compared to one-day cricket. The batter is ready to hit you, so your body is in attention mode all the time. You don’t get time to relax, unlike one-day cricket where you bowl an opening spell, then have a burst in the middle, and also operate at the death. That allows you to plan according to the circumstances and the state of the ball.”
That “attention mode” may carry consequences beyond just physical workload. Constant exposure to a format where every over feels like a crisis can mentally condition bowlers to think in T20 terms even when they are not playing the format: immediate problem-solving, constant variation, and perpetual risk management. In senior one-day cricket, however, those instincts are required, but not always rewarded.
The physical manifestation of the “attention mode” Ravi talks about essentially makes modern T20 bowling an exercise in defence. One-day cricket still demands those skills, but only as a subset of a wider toolkit, leaving room for something else: attacking bowling. There are still phases where repeatedly hitting an area creates pressure, where quicks can pitch it up to extract swing, and where spinners can consistently toss the ball up in search of dip, drift, and turn.
That is exactly where some coaches fear the developmental gap may emerge. Bowlers raised almost exclusively on T20 cricket after the U19 level may begin internalising defensive instincts even before reaching senior cricket. Odedra believes traces of that shift may become visible soon. “You will see more bowlers trying variations all the time. You will see slower balls and yorkers all the time. You may see fewer bowlers consistently bowling those good line-and-length spells.”
None of this guarantees decline, as T20 cricket undeniably sharpens valuable skills of its own. But without a dedicated 50-over stage at U23 and University levels, bowlers may simply have fewer opportunities to develop slow-burning habits that come through time in the middle, which T20 cricket simply does not provide.
Perhaps the biggest bone of contention sits somewhere between bat and ball.
Barring a few gifted talents, all-rounders rarely arrive as finished products. They are built gradually; a batter bowling enough overs to become a genuine option, or a bowler making enough match-winning contributions with the bat to justify an elevation. One-day cricket, with enough time to contribute meaningfully in both disciplines, offers fertile ground for that growth. Beneficiaries include some of the premier active Indian all-rounders. Hardik Pandya’s rise through Baroda’s limited-overs sides and Shardul Thakur’s evolution from a red-ball specialist into a white-ball weapon for Mumbai and then India, were both shaped in part by performances in Vijay Hazare Trophy.
That developmental runway matters even more in the current context of India’s ODI setup. Since Pandya’s emergence about a decade ago, India have struggled to unearth a seam-bowling all-rounder of his calibre. Nitish Kumar Reddy and Shivam Dube have become valuable T20 options, but grooming a like-for-like ODI all-rounder won’t be easy with fewer 50-over opportunities at the pivotal U23 stage.
Odedra believes modern white-ball incentives are already nudging players towards early specialisation. He points to the Impact Player rule in the IPL. “It definitely affects the quality of all-rounders. Your role becomes limited only to batting or bowling. A player who does both, and earned his place in the side via holistic contributions, gets affected.”
The concern is that a more T20-centric pathway after U19 cricket could accelerate that process, taking away that 50-over playing field which becomes the breeding ground for white-ball all-rounders. Players may think of the time dedicated to keeping a peripheral but useful skill alive as wasted. A batter who occasionally rolls his arm over may stop bowling altogether, while a bowler who isn’t a mug with the bat might become so.
Yet, Poddar envisages a potential upside, especially if the Impact Player rule stays away from U23 cricket, which it has so far. “When that option wasn’t there in T20 cricket, the all-rounder was the most valuable player,” he analyzes. Mumbai Indians called Poddar for trials alongside Mukul Choudhary, the highest run-scorer at the previous U23 Trophy. There, he was given feedback that multi-dimensional cricketers are the need of the hour. “They told me that if I bowled, they would have considered me more seriously,’’ Poddar adds.
He believes in the simple logic that versatility still holds immense value in T20 cricket. “If I am making a one-day team, I will first pick six genuine batters and then one all-rounder. In a T20 team without an Impact Player, I might pick three all-rounders and four batters. So maybe, all-rounders might actually get a better chance in this format.”
Although a caveat is legitimate potency in both the departments. While one-day cricket makes room for those who are a work in progress, T20 cricket is often less forgiving. Batters who can only bowl dibbly-dobbly seamers at 110 kmph, a la Virat Kohli, can get away with a few overs in a quieter phase of a one-day innings. But their margin for error in T20 would be infinitesimal. Similarly, bowlers who aren’t a walking wicket but lack an attacking game, a la Kuldeep Yadav, will essentially be considered as having one primary skill only in T20 cricket. Players looking to develop a secondary skill may no longer be able to blow hot and cold, for in the absence of unequivocal reliability, they’ll stay a specialist.
That possibility aligns with Poddar’s argument. If T20 cricket increasingly rewards versatility, it may simultaneously demand top-drawer versatility. That uncertainty perhaps captures the larger tension around the BCCI’s decision: some trade-offs feel easier to anticipate than others. Albeit reducing the decision to merely a developmental compromise would miss the larger forces reshaping the sport.
To many within the system, the BCCI’s move feels less like disruption and more like belated acceptance. Odedra deems the shift both inevitable and practical. “I think it’s a very good initiative. What youngsters want right now is smaller-format cricket. T20 is in vogue. The selectors and scouts will also get better insight into the current crop.”
The logic extends beyond preference and meets preparation. Poddar argues that modern one-day cricket itself increasingly demands T20 fluency. “A one-day batter today is a combination of a good T20 batter and a good Test batter. Earlier, 250 was defendable. Nowadays, 350 is also not safe so in one-day cricket you often need to play at the pace of T20.”
Going by that train of thought, the format shift begins to look less like abandonment of one-day cricket and more like alignment for its next chapter. Kedarnath feels it will fill a gap that previously existed after U19 cricket. “At the age-group level, there is no T20 tournament. Once players cross U19, this becomes an intermediary link for T20 cricket.”
The timing only adds to its relevance. Aditya Tare, now a scout with Mumbai Indians, notes that since the tournament precedes the IPL auctions it will serve as an apposite litmus test.
Ravi, who has experienced the jump from U19 to senior white-ball cricket himself, is onboard. “If any player was selected for senior T20s from U23 one-day cricket, they found the transition difficult. The ball feels different, the quality is higher. One benefit of this move is that players will enjoy a smoother transition smoother from U23 T20 to senior T20.”
Another reality is set in stone. A parallel cricketing ecosystem seems to be taking shape outside the traditional domestic ladder, which adds a new dimension to BCCI’s decision.
State T20 leagues have arguably become the most influential talent-identification platforms in the country. Priyansh Arya’s meteoric rise through Delhi Premier League bears testimony. So does Madhav Tiwari’s flourish as the all-rounder is yet to represent his state.
At the grassroots, Satya recognizes the attitudinal flux. “The mindset of youngsters is changing. Earlier, the thinking was: do well in domestic cricket and then get picked for IPL or India. Now many players just want to do well in the T20 leagues. They think, ‘If I perform there, I’ll get picked for the IPL directly.’”
Ashar Khan, a 21-year-old cricketer from Uttarakhand who invests all his energy on white-ball cricket, gives a first-hand perspective of the evolving landscape. “The chances are more in white-ball cricket. If I excel in U23 T20s, there’s a good chance scouts will notice me.”
The appeal is very real now. Strong performances in state T20 leagues can now deliver visibility, financial rewards and career openings that once came only through the slower domestic toil. Alluding to players sidestepping the traditional grind of age-group and domestic cricket in favour of faster entry points into IPL, Satya claims “they don’t want to play domestic cricket. They want to take the shortcut that state leagues proffer.’’
Other routes to visibility are emerging as well. Earlier this year, 20-year-old leg-spinner Izaz Sawariya found himself on the IPL auction list despite never having played professional cricket. His springboard was Instagram, where videos of his bowling sessions gradually attracted attention from coaches, players and franchises alike. A journey this extraordinary would have been impossible a few years ago. As things stand, a mere reflection of a chronically online era.
This growing influence of social media worries keen observers. Steffan Jones, the high-performance fast-bowling coach who is a regular feature at franchises, recently flagged parents running their children’s social media profiles “like marketing agencies” as an alarming trend.
In a widely shared post, he argued that “the game is becoming performative before it becomes developmental”, warning that budding cricketers are facing the pressure to build an audience before they have built their game. Social media itself isn’t a source of his apprehension; he fears the trajectory towards an environment where optics eclipse fundamentals as the primary currency.
Against this backdrop, where the ticket to fame is more accessible than ever before, the BCCI’s decision may carry a prospective third-order effect. By introducing formal U23 and University T20 competitions within the domestic structure, talented players shall be discouraged from being consumed by parallel ecosystems. If franchise scouts are inevitably watching T20 cricket anyway and players crave visibility, the board is streamlining the demand and supply by furnishing all stakeholders with a meaningful platform in the status quo.
Rather than viewing this as a simple scheduling adjustment, it may be more useful to see it as a test of how malleable India’s cricketing ecosystem really is.
The logic behind the move is difficult to dismiss. T20 cricket has become the sport’s economic engine. Dedicated T20 competitions at U23 and University levels may well keep talent tethered to the formal domestic structure rather than searching for greener, uncomplicated pastures.
However, developmental pathways don’t exist in silos. They shape incentives. If the years immediately after U19 cricket increasingly revolve around T20 preparation, the game may gradually begin producing different kinds of cricketers: more explosive batters, more variation-heavy bowlers, perhaps more specialists and fewer accumulators.
It would be prudent to not think of this as some sort of decline, at least not so soon. Cricket has always evolved. Every generation has believed something valuable was being lost, only for players to adapt and reinvent the sport yet again. India’s talent pool is deep enough to survive structural tweaks that would unsettle most cricketing nations.
Yet the pruning of a dedicated 50-over interim at U23 and University levels beckons an uncomfortable unknown. If one-day cricket remains the format of the sport’s biggest World Cup, where exactly will future ODI cricketers learn their craft?
Perhaps the answer, as the BCCI may be hoping, is that they will pivot and maneuver, just like the 50-over format itself seems to be doing. But for now, Indian cricket appears to be conducting an experiment on one of its chief developmental ladders, the consequences of which may only fully reveal themselves years later.
with inputs from Aryan Surana
