It is difficult to argue against the fact Vaibhav Sooryavanshi will be the highest-profile 15-year-old batter to debut in international cricket, when he plays T20s for India next month.
But the first? Far from it. Picking child prodigies might be all the rage because of Sooryavanshi’s spellbinding form in the IPL, but for the UAE, it is old hat.
The UAE women’s team have handed new caps to three players of that age in T20 internationals this month.
The new trio might even feel like they have had a long wait. Back in 2020, the ICC introduced a minimum age requirement of 15 to play international cricket, in no small part because of how willing the UAE had been to start their female players early.
Samaira Dharnidharka was 11 when she debuted for the UAE in 2019. The fast bowler has been an integral member of the side for the time since.
Vaishnave Mahesh was 12 when she started. The leg-spinner played her 100th T20 international when the UAE beat Malaysia on Wednesday, and she is still only 19.
And Ahmed Raza, the UAE coach, acknowledged they have been counting down the days before Janani Thirukkumaran was eligible to play.
Janani, a batter who also bowls off-spin, was handed her debut in the opening game of the UAE’s ACC Women’s Premier Cup campaign in Malaysia last week.
“It sounds weird talking about a 15-year-old having been around for a while, but if you look at her CricHeroes numbers, they're unbelievable,” Raza said.
“She's played over 300 games, usually in a team full of boys when she'd be the only girl playing. She is a special talent, and we were not going to miss that for long.
“It was a case of waiting for her to turn 15, and then waiting for the opportunity to introduce her to international cricket.
“When you're looking at that number - 15 - you have to be a special talent to break into the national team, and Janani obviously is one of them.”
UAE coach
Clearly, her profile is some way short of Sooryavanshi’s. But there are aspects of Janani’s journey which bear similarities to the Rajasthan Royals sensation.
She, too, has had her skills polished by exposure to franchise cricket. Having first learnt cricket at Young Talents Cricket Academy (YTCA) in Ajman – where she still plays – she has had extra tuition as part of the Desert Vipers development pathway.
Even though a women’s version of the International League T20 has yet to be created, the franchise have staged tournaments for girls at junior level. In both 2024 and 2025, the Vipers won, with Janani as their captain and star player.
That, as well as her ongoing excellence in domestic cricket, was the reason they offered her one of the first scholarships for their development programme.
“The girls train in amongst the boys and she certainly doesn't look out of place,” said Jack Luffman, the Vipers’ development lead.
“She's getting plenty of exposure at the international level, but also at franchise level, in the hope that in the future maybe there will be an ILT20 women's version. Then these girls will have had some experience of what a franchise environment looks like and feels like.
“The dream is to see one of these players who we’ve been working with for three or four years to get drafted, hopefully by us in an auction in three or four years' time.
“Even just seeing them perform at the highest stage would be great, knowing that we've had something to do with that progression.”
Shahzad Altaf, the founder of YTCA, reckons Janani is on the path to matching the likes of the UAE team’s stars, like Esha Oza and Theertha Satish.
“When she was nine, she came to play matches with us, and I told her father she was very talented,” said Altaf, who has produced several players for UAE senior teams via his academy.
“Her family have supported her a lot. She is a brilliant prospect, and given the right opportunities she will be one of the leading players in the team in the next two or three years.”
Raza is glad to have an expanding player pool to pick from for the UAE side, who can now look forward to testing themselves against the stars of the game at the Asia Cup later this year.
“It's brilliant because [the growing development pathway] is feeding products to the national team,” Raza said.
“When you have a bigger pool to pick players from, it creates competition for the established players as well.
“You've got players coming with different skills from the under-19s, or even younger than that. Then it's about keeping them in the system, keeping them interested, giving them enough cricket for them to grow, and for us to keep an eye on how they are progressing in their games.
“By introducing the odd player into different squads you're not compromising on the combination of the team, but you're also developing the younger ones.
“They will not necessarily get the game time, but at least experience the environment in the dressing room, and they see what other teams in international cricket look like.”
