Opinion Sweet Victory

Over the years, individual players have stood out but this is perhaps the first time a team has ticked all boxes and looked primed for the next level.

India’s eight-wicket win over Australia in the final of the Under-19 World Cup was more confirmation that Prithivi Shaw’s team is brimming with talent. The Rahul Dravid-coached side was one of the favourites at the biannual event but by winning all six games by huge margins they proved to be head and shoulders above the competition. At this level, India has won the World Cup a record four times. Over the years, individual players have stood out but this is perhaps the first time a team has ticked all boxes and looked primed for the next level. Last year when the core of this team won both the youth Test matches and blanked hosts England in the youth ODIs, watchers of junior cricket knew they would achieve something special at the World Cup.

Shaw, the captain, who has played nine first-class games and made five hundreds, was fast-tracked into the Mumbai Ranji Trophy squad on the advice of Dravid. Shaw’s opening partner, Manjot Kalra, a left-handed batsman, made a remarkable unbeaten hundred in the final, all the while displaying monk-like serenity. No.3 Shubman Gill scored 418 classy runs and was named player of the tournament. More than the number of runs, it is the maturity, game awareness and ability to construct an innings that stand out in these gifted batsmen. The story of the World Cup, however, has been the fast bowlers — Shivam Mavi, Ishan Porel and Kamlesh Nagarkoti, bowlers who fall in the right-arm fast category and collectively were the quickest unit at the tournament. They hurried batsmen to such an extent that Ryan Harris, the former Australian pace bower and head coach of the team, said that his players were not used to this kind of pace. Spin, as always, remains a strong suit, with Anukul Roy finishing with 14 wickets — the joint highest at the World Cup. If there is a chink in the armour of this squad, it wasn’t spotted at the World Cup.

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Accolades and cash awards will be showered on these young men, some of whom have already bagged IPL contracts, and deservedly so. But when the dust settles on the celebrations, the players must heed Dravid’s sage advice during the post-match interview. “Hopefully, it is a memory that the players will cherish for a long time but hopefully it is not a memory that defines them.”