The Boy Zone

Amre is banking on them to deliver. ‘‘There are cricketers who have shown great temperament at senior level on the domestic circuit, so I don’t see them being overawed by an event like the World Cup,’’ says Amre. The last time the Indians were in Sri Lanka there were two players who were not bothered by the hype around the World Cup. Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif won the Cup for India and also made their way to the senior team very soon.

Here are five cricketers who can take the same path as Yuvraj and Kaif did:

Yo Mahesh
Medium pacer
HE comes across as a pace bowler with an attitude. Six feet and two inches tall, Mahesh sort of likes Bret Lee but is quick to add, ‘‘I don’t want to be like this guy or that guy, I want to be myself.’’ He is express fast but isn’t in a hurry. He wants to live the moment and concentrate on the job at hand rather than contemplate about his future. ‘‘I don’t think much about being the Man in Blue,’’ he says. But you make him to think about it and he, finally, spills the beans. ‘‘The dream is obviously to play for India.’’ That’s all he is ready to reveal right now.

Mahesh caught the selectors’ eyes with his sparkling performance in the Plate Division Cooch Behar Trophy in 2004-2005. His 101 and 7/52 against Railways saw him earn a place in the U-19 team for the home ‘Test’ series against England last year. Since then his raw pace has surprised many, including the English colts, the Aussies boys in the subsequent ODI series and even one-time Test opener Deep Dasgupta —his only Ranji victim.

Expert opinion:
Prasad: Has fantastic approach, commitment and, above all, a very good team man. Beats the batsman with sheer pace; has good yorkers and variation. Does bat a bit as well and a good fielder.
— Tapan K Mohanta

Cheteshwar Pujara
Middle-order batsman
FOR long they said he wasn’t suited for the shorter version but purists will tell you that it’s the modern way of describing a technically perfect batsman. Just a week before his 14th birthday he created a national record by scoring 306 in Merchant Trophy game.

Last year, a week after his 16th birthday, he scored 211 against England in the under-19 Test. Fours years separated these two innings but Pujara hasn’t changed his batting approach. Too much one-dayers on television hasn’t failed to corrupt his ‘straight-bat carpet drives’ method.

The knocks have been towering but not his strokes. The fours hit during these two innings have been 62 but the sixes’ column has gone empty. So what’s a boy of his age doing in a squad like this? Checking the Afro-Asian scorecard might prove meaningful. An average of 81 from six games and a sheet-anchor 81 against Pakistan meant there was still space for copy-book kinds in the fast forward version. Pujara says he was not giving in yet to the infectious slam-bang version.

Expert opinion:
Prasad: Very positive and committed. Doesn’t talk much, knows what he is doing. A slow starter, he needs to improve on fielding.
— Sandeep Dwivedi

Piyush Chawla
Leg-spinner
THE 16-year-old leggie has done something that even the great Shane Warne would be proud of. He foxed Sachin Tendulkar with his googly! Since then, the world has changed for Chawla. He travelled with Team India as a net bowler during the Lanka series and got used to signing autographs and being in the media glare. But ask him if he thinks the under-19 World Cup is child’s play and Chawla shakes his head. ‘‘No, this happens to be the first step,’’ he says, stressing the significance of the assignment. While Chawla got the spotlight now, he has been hitting the headlines since his debut in the home series against England last year. He scalped 13 from two ‘Tests’ (Avg. 12) and later 15 in the Afro-Asia Cup to emerge as the highest wicket-taker. All this has meant that Chawla happens to be in the scheme of things as India try to answer that disturbing question: Who after Anil Kumble?

Expert opinion:
Prasad: A great bowler; his wrong ’uns are impossible to read — foxed Tendulkar in the Challenger Trophy. Can score at brisk pace.
— Tapan K Mohanta

Mayank Tehlan
(Middle-order batsman)
A big hundred on Ranji debut certainly makes one confident. And it also helps if one has Virender Sehwag as your cousin. Mayank Tehlan has both of them as he says, ‘‘Though I am extremely happy to make the cut, although I must confess that I was expecting this,’’ he says. 175 runs against Maharashtra and 70 in the trials meant Tehlan was certainly going to make it to Sri Lanka. Like his batting style — by the way he and Sehwag have the same coach — Tehlan is a man in hurry. ‘‘There have been so many who have got the big breaks after making their mark in the junior World Cup. I too want to cash in on it. If I could play some big innings I can be in the reckoning for India A or the Challenger teams,’’ he says as he looks beyond Sri Lanka.

But it is this tearing hurry that proved detrimental for Tehlan. The urge to dominate the bowlers has seen him throw his wicket and that is something coach Prasad had pointed out to him during the series against Australia. But ask him if, after the first class success, he is taking the junior World Cup lightly and he becomes serious. ‘‘World Cup is always the ultimate challenge, it doesn’t matter that it’s for the juniors,’’ he says matter-of-factly.

Expert opinion:
Prasad: Had a very good first-class season with a big hundred on his debut for Delhi. Very talented, has to take more responsibility. Sometimes, he gets unsettled, has to carry on when he is set.— GS Vivek

GAURAV DHIMAN
All-rounder
HIS father Sunil Dhiman represented the country in hockey but he has opted for the willow. Like his approach to cricket, Gaurav’s explanation is quite simple .

‘‘I prefer to hit a ball with a bat rather than flick it with a stick,’’ he says. Gaurav’s ‘big break’ came when — at the age of 17— he was selected for U-19 Youth World Cup in Bangladesh. He ended the tournament as a ‘find’, taking eight wickets and batting at No.6 with the highest score of 45.

However, he stole the limelight in the recent Afro-Asia Cup and showed that the Karnataka cricketer has all the makings of a good all-rounder. He scored an unbeaten hundred against Zimbabwe coming in at No. 6. That meant instant promotion and an openers’ slot in the final against Lanka. Another century meant he had amassed 423 runs — including three hundreds and a fifty — in Afro-Asia Cup, besides grabbing six crucial wickets.

‘‘It’s been a great last season. My performance in the Afro-Asia Cup has given a perfect boost to my confidence. But now, I’m keen to take this age-group performance into the big league. And for that I’ll have to wait for my turn,’’ says the patient player.

Expert opinion:
Prasad: Very, very talented. Has lots of courage and aggressive as well. He showed all of us what he is capable of in the Afro-Asia Cup. You can make him play in any position; tends to relax when things are going well on the field, needs to know how to approach and being positive.
— Tapan K Mohanta