AB de Villiers Called Him a Veteran. Razdan Called Him a Miracle. Tonight He Chases Sehwag.

There are compliments, and then there's AB de Villiers going on his YouTube channel and telling the world that a 15-year-old 'looks like he has been playing international cricket for the last 10-15 years.'

Let that sink in. De Villiers — the man who scored the fastest ODI century in history, who played 114 Tests and 228 ODIs, who has seen more generational talent than most cricket boards combined — watched Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and didn't see a teenager finding his feet. He saw a finished product. A veteran in a schoolboy's body.

Tonight at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, Sooryavanshi steps onto an international field in India for the first time. His first home match. Afghanistan are the opposition. And the entire cricket establishment has collectively decided to stop treating him like a curiosity and start treating him like what he is — a once-in-a-generation batsman who happens to be 15.

Former India pacer Vivek Razdan went further than de Villiers. He didn't use 'talented' or 'exciting' or any of the safe adjectives cricket pundits reach for when describing young players. He used 'miracle.'

'Everyone needs to understand that miracles are not made, they are born,' Razdan said on Samaa TV. 'We have seen such miracles in cricket before, and Vaibhav is one of them.' That's not hype. That's a former international cricketer — someone who bowled to Sachin Tendulkar in the nets — categorically placing Sooryavanshi in the tier of players who transcend normal talent curves.

Razdan also acknowledged the elephant in the room: managing a prodigy. 'I feel a little more patience can be shown with him,' he said. 'The challenge is how to handle him.' He's right. The history of cricket prodigies is littered with careers that burned bright and then burned out because the system couldn't resist the temptation to overuse them. But Sooryavanshi's situation is different — he's not being rushed. He played the IPL first. He debuted against England. He dominated Zimbabwe. The exposure has been calibrated, not chaotic.

Here's the stat that should genuinely alarm opposition bowlers: Sooryavanshi has hit 14 sixes in 6 T20I innings. Virender Sehwag — arguably the most destructive opener in India's T20I history — hit 16 sixes in 19 matches across his entire T20I career.

Sooryavanshi needs three more tonight to overtake Sehwag. Three sixes. In his seventh innings. Against an Afghanistan side whose own captain, Ibrahim Zadran, admitted earlier this week that they have a 'proper plan' specifically for the teenager. The plan might work for an over. Maybe two. But the maths is absurd: Sooryavanshi is reaching in six matches what Sehwag needed 19 to achieve, at a strike rate of 189.21 versus Sehwag's 145.38.

This isn't a comparison designed to diminish Sehwag — that would be foolish. Sehwag played in a different T20I era, with fewer matches and less emphasis on boundary-hitting. But the rate at which Sooryavanshi is accumulating sixes speaks to something the format has never seen before: a teenager with the timing of a veteran and the power of someone who shouldn't physically be able to hit the ball this far at 15.

Sooryavanshi's 2026 reads like a career, not a calendar year. He debuted in the IPL at 14 and led the tournament in six-hitting with 72 maximums across 16 matches at a strike rate of 237.3 for Rajasthan Royals. Then came the international debut against England at Old Trafford on July 4 — at 15 years and 99 days, the youngest to represent India in any format, surpassing Sachin Tendulkar.

The real explosion came in Zimbabwe. Player of the Series. 151 runs in three T20Is. An 18-ball fifty — the youngest to score a T20I half-century in men's cricket, eclipsing Nepal's Kushal Malla. An unbeaten 81 off 49. The kind of numbers that force opposition captains to name you in press conferences before a ball has been bowled.

And now the biggest question ahead of tonight: will he even open? Captain Shreyas Iyer called the opening combination 'a tight call' with Sanju Samson returning to the squad after missing the Zimbabwe tour. Samson's record is excellent. Abhishek Sharma is the other opener. Sooryavanshi could bat at three. But dropping the most explosive teenager in world cricket down the order to accommodate a 32-year-old, however talented, would be a statement about priorities that India might not want to make.

Home debuts carry a different weight. When Sooryavanshi walked out at Old Trafford, he was an intriguing unknown in hostile conditions. When he dominated in Harare, he was proving the Old Trafford debut wasn't a fluke. Tonight in Delhi, he steps out in front of an Indian crowd for the first time. This is where the story shifts from 'remarkable young talent' to 'India's next franchise player.'

De Villiers sees a veteran. Razdan sees a miracle. Zadran sees a problem. Iyer sees a selection headache he's happy to have. Somewhere in the middle of all those perspectives is a 15-year-old who hits sixes like he's angry at the ball and bats like he's been doing this for a decade.

Three sixes tonight and he passes Sehwag. In a third of the matches. At 15. If Razdan is right that miracles are born, not made — tonight at the Arun Jaitley Stadium is when India's miracle announces himself at home.