India-Pak U-19 World Cup clash: What Vaibhav Suryavanshi and Ayush Mhatre can learn from Virat Kohli’s class of 2008

Another under-19 World Cup is reaching its business end in Zimbabwe. On Sunday, India is playing Pakistan in a crucial Super Six game. They have lost to the neighbours in the junior Asia Cup recently. They aren’t likely to shake hands. There would be taunts and sledges. Known to ape their heroes in the seniors teams, the impressionable boys might not be averse to blurt out war references too. It might get ugly.

There would be incitement but, like Virat did back in the day, there will be the pressing need to focus on winning this crunch game. The game is expected to be a moment of truth for two stars – Vaibhav Suryavanshi and Ayush Mhatre. The IPL heroes have a chance to elevate their status and be India stars. Like Virat, they too can be the harbingers of change. Just 14, Sooryavanshi stands on the bank of a sea with unending possibilities.

Like it for this Class of 2026 now, the March of 2008 had held a lot of promise for Virat and his very talented team. They were a fun-loving bunch but obsessively driven to be the best in the world. They had laughs but were collectively scowly when confronted on field. The IPL was about to start, the kids knew that the franchise owners were watching. If they played their cards right, their lives were going to change forever. It was fascinating to watch the young, eyes alight with dreams, fame and fortune tantalisingly within reach.

Ravindra Jadeja, not yet the Rock Star that Warne called him or the legend that the world has acknowledged now, had brought to the World Cup small town India’s fashion trend – the straightened hair-style. His early query to the reporter at the ground was very basic. Not the pitch, nor the conditions, he wanted to know which channel was broadcasting the tournament back home. “Poore Jamnagar ko batana hai,” he would say.

There was a much taller and broader player who too had the same hair-style. He was the hard-hitter Ranchi boy Sourabh Tiwary. Not surprisingly, his role model was his ‘bhaiya’ – Mahi bhaiya aka MS Dhoni. Sourabh had blonde streaks like Dhoni. He was the only player who had an agent traveling with him. His handler would hang around the few reporters at the ground, sweet talk them while giving details of his journey. Sourabh too had a flex. After one match-winning knock he would say, “Mahi bhaiya ka phone number bhi hai hamare paas, unhone hi diya hai (I have Mahi bhaiya’s phone number. He has given it to me).” In years to come the world would come to know about the importance of availing the phone number of India’s most enigmatic player.

The impact of making Kohli captain was felt in the final when India was all out for 159 and South African wicket-keeper Bradley Barnes took a dig at India’s low score. (File)

The squad also had the sly spinner with Mumbai maidan cleverness Iqbal Abdulla. There was also a Jat pacer Pradeep Sangwan, his bulging biceps giving him a fierce aura. Also in the team was the light on feet and very flexible pacer Siddharth Kaul, whose mother was a national level gymnast. In Shreevats Goswami, India had a gutsy wicket-keeper opener. He didn’t miss a beat and was constantly in the ears of the captain.

The team had the incredibly talented Manish Pandey. A gifted batsman, a lively fielder, Manish had great hands. Once during a net session, he brought down a spinner’s delivery in air by hitting it with a spare ball in his hands. He had the aim of a marksman. There was the Baroda pacer Ajitesh Argal, who mostly kept to himself. The side’s opener was the stylish batsman Taruwar Kohli. His family owned the popular BAS bat-making company and had won India a game.

Interestingly, the coach of the team was Dav Whatmore, the Aussie who had helped an Island, Sri Lanka, conquer the world. Endearingly, at press conferences, he would often refer to Virat as ‘son’.

There was one boy who seldom spoke. He was Tanmay Srivastava, the team’s dependable opener from Lucknow. Virat called him Bhaisaab. Before the tournament, Tanmay was India’s u-19 captain.

In an inspired move, the selectors replaced the soft-spoken batsman with ingrained Lucknow gentility, with Virat, the West Delhi boy not known to give undue respect to rivals. What had seemed like an insignificant change to the junior India team, would prove to be the crucial nudge that gave Indian cricket a revolutionary makeover.

The impact of this change was felt in the final when India was all out for 159 in a rain-curtailed game and South African wicket-keeper Bradley Barnes took a dig at India’s low score. His words reached the Indian dressing room. It worked as an ember that ignited Virat. This wasn’t your stereotypical nice-guys Indian team—the kind that didn’t react to snide remarks, whose blood never boiled and who kept wondering the consequences of confrontational approach.

Virat ensured that 11 possessed teens took the field. Argal, the silent one, bowled an inspired spell. Jadeja struck at crucial intervals, In days to come Jadeja would be Virat’s trusted firearm in many such street fights. And when the last South African wicket fell, Virat would shout at the top of his voice, the veins of neck bulging worryingly. One shouldn’t have worried, for years to come, his wild victory roar would keep echoing around the world to be the traditional trumpet that announces many Indian victories.

For Virat and his boys, the March of 2008, 18 years ago, was the kind that they never wanted to end. Of course, like all dreams it did. And now rolls the postscript of this Teen-Dream blockbuster.

* The boy they called Cheeku went to be Virat Kohli, The GOAT.
* Jadeja outlasted even Kohli to become an all-rounder that Indian cricket had never seen
* Manish Pandey became IPL’s first centurion.
* Goswami was the “best young player of the IPL’
* Sourabh Tiwary now heads Jharkhand Cricket Association.
* Ajitesh Argal and Tanmay Srivastava are reputed umpires.
* Abdulla and Sangwan are seen on the veterans circuit.
* Taruwar Kohli has a cricket podcast.