Will Young was playing senior team cricket at 19 but it is only at 30 that he’s carved his place in the national team. In all that time, he’s never given up

Alagappan Muthu and Deivarayan Muthu11-Oct-2023Six years ago, a team from New Zealand had come to Chennai to work on how to play spin. Will Young was a part of it. Except he needed special permission.See, he was from Central Districts. And this training program was being conducted by Canterbury. Dude was basically gatecrashing. And what was he gatecrashing? A class trip to the library. Who does that?Young chose to spend his September halfway across the world because he thought it’d be good preparation… for an A team tour that was coming up. That’s how serious he is about his game.Related

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The wider world knows Young as a top-order batter with a reasonable record – averages 42.28 in ODIs with two centuries and six fifties from 24 innings. It’s also no secret that he flows into his drives, their beauty checked only by the fact that he is bottom-hand dominant. And that’s sort of it.Within New Zealand, there’s always been hype around him. He was captain of their Under-19 team at the World Cup in 2012, where they made it to the semi-finals. He was already playing first-class cricket by then, a teenager spending time on the field with veterans like Matthew Sinclair, Chris Martin and Daryl Tuffey. He went on to lead Central Districts to the one-day Ford Trophy and four-day Plunket Shield titles.Prodigies don’t usually have to wait until they’re 30 to carve a place for themselves. But that’s been Young’s lot. The Test match he was supposed to debut in was scrapped because of a terrorist attack in Christchurch. He injured his shoulder at a preparatory camp for the 2019 World Cup and ended up watching from home. Six days ago, when he finally got to represent New Zealand in this prestigious tournament, he was caught down the leg side for a duck.There’s good luck. There’s bad luck. And then there’s what Young has, where everything seems to be coming together just so it can unravel spectacularly. Picture winning the lottery, except on the way to collect the money, you get hit by lightning.All high-performance athletes need to have a working relationship with failure and Young understands that. That trip to Chennai in 2017 was about closing holes in his game. He perfected his sweep shot there under the supervision of Gary Stead who made him play without his front pad. With nothing but the bat to protect himself, he developed the intuition needed to pick the right ball to sweep and the repetition helped in developing the muscle memory needed to play the shot confidently.Will Young averages 42.28 in ODIs with two centuries and six fifties from 24 innings•ICC via Getty ImagesYears later, in 2022 when he made 89 in a Test match in Kanpur against a bowling attack of R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel, he referenced those lessons as invaluable.”Will took that chance to come over here [six years ago], which I think is a testament to his growth and mindset as well and thinking about the future in how he can grow his game,” Stead recalled, in the lead-up to New Zealand’s World Cup game against Bangladesh at Chepauk, on Wednesday. “Hopefully, you can lean back on those experiences when you get times like now as well.”The whole idea is, in New Zealand, we get conditions that are pace and bounce and usually don’t spin a lot. So, it was a chance for Will – and others – to grow their games and experience real differences in what we would normally face – the heat, for one, dealing with the sweat, the turning pitches, and the changing conditions are the ideas we were sort of looking for to try and be able to grow their games.”Yet for a few hours, as Rachin Ravindra flayed England to all parts, it seemed like Young’s World Cup campaign was in jeopardy. Here was a player who had everything. The ball pinged off his bat with such a sound. He was only 23 too. Named after Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar. The story wrote itself. The future had arrived.Ravindra came in at No. 3 that day. The way he bats, steadily picking up steam, he’d be wasted down the order. Devon Conway and Kane Williamson are locked in this team. So that left the guy who fell for a duck.

“Every great player is also aware of the areas they want to improve in, then dedicate their time to putting in the yards to make those gains and Will certainly fits that bill.”Glenn Pocknall, Young’s domestic coach

Except Young had earned New Zealand’s trust over two difficult tours to the subcontinent. In Bangladesh, he made the difference in a contest between second-string sides, his 70 off 80 balls securing a series win for New Zealand. And earlier, in Pakistan, he was that rare right-handed batter that Shaheen Shah Afridi couldn’t dismiss with the new ball. Not even after four tries.Young produced extremely respectable numbers against one of the most dangerous quicks in the world – 48 runs in 54 balls with eight fours – and only went up a notch when the spinners came on. He hit Shadab Khan and Mohammad Nawaz for a combined 73 runs in 58 balls and suffered just two dismissals.One innings, in particular, stands out in the mind of Young’s domestic coach Glenn Pocknall. “It could have been the deal breaker for him to cement his opening spot in the ODI team. He scored 87, opening against Pakistan in Pakistan in May this year, I think it was. An innings showcasing his skills navigating the new ball and then playing the spinners with ease on a wearing surface. An innings which allowed New Zealand to beat Pakistan in Pakistan, which is a great feat.”At almost the last chance he had to fashion himself a meaningful ODI career, Young has come good. He is 30 now. If he had missed this World Cup, he probably wasn’t going to get another. It feels like just a reward for a player who just will not give up.Young had 200 domestic matches to his name by the time he made his debut for New Zealand in 2020. The closest he would get until then was the A team and maybe that’s why he didn’t mind country-hopping in preparation for even that level of cricket.”He has great work ethic and that Chennai trip in 2017 shows what he’s willing to do to get better,” Pocknall said. “Every great player is also aware of the areas they want to improve in, then dedicate their time to putting in the yards to make those gains and Will certainly fits that bill.”Quite often he has been given one-off games or come in at the last minute and performed well. This is another fine example of his ability to show up on the big stage. He has shown a huge relentless drive to keep improving and it’s this mindset which has allowed him to overcome any type of setback.”Young has had to wait his turn. He’s had to feed on scraps. He’s had to push himself in pursuit of a dream that kept slipping away. He’s persevered through all of that and proven once and for all that where there’s a Will, there’s a way.

This wasn’t just an ODI against India as much as it was Murphy’s Law stretched to breaking point

Danyal Rasool12-Sep-20232:08

Is Pakistan’s approach in big chases a concern?

The DJ’s setlist during India-Pakistan games at neutral venues – which is all India-Pakistan games now – can often be whimsically random. There are the usual pop classics from both countries, or whatever’s hovering around the top of the charts. But on occasion, a stroke of relevant inspiration hits, and halfway through Pakistan’s flawless chase against India in Dubai in 2021, Van Morrison blared through on the sound system.Related

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Two years on from Pakistan’s perfect day, India and Pakistan meet again, but in a tournament where raining and complaining have been ubiquitous, these aren’t days like those. Babar Azam wins the toss and fields first again, but the similarities end there. Minutes after he speaks, the clouds begin to clear and a watery sun peaks through; this isn’t even a day like the one Pakistan enjoyed a week prior, a repeat of which prompts the Pakistan captain into putting India in. And so begins an ODI so wretched, it rendered the first letter of that acronym redundant in its bid to haunt Pakistan over the next two days.Bowling first when armed with the most enthralling attack in the world is tempting, though this is the third successive time Pakistan have opted to do so against India in this format and ended up on the wrong end of a mauling. The last two times came at the 2019 World Cup and the 2017 Champions Trophy, with India winning by 89 and 124 runs. And for all of Pakistan’s optimism around restricting India to a chasable 267 in Pallekele last week, it bears repeating they have never won the toss and managed a triumphant chase in excess of 250 against this opposition.But even when Rohit Sharma flicks Shaheen Shah Afridi away for six in the first over, Naseem draws a chance from Shubman Gill first ball, an aerial cut that Afridi might have reached with a more decisive lunge. Next ball, an inside edge whooshes past the stumps and goes for four. While Afridi suddenly can’t find swing and is bullied off the fuller length, Naseem sends down a maiden and then finds Gill’s edge. Somehow, keeper, first slip and second slip all go for it but let it go at the same time. Like the flick of a switch, it seems, India have suddenly worked out how to neuter what is a world-class fast-bowling attack.Shaheen Shah Afridi and Virat Kohli experience contrasting emotions•Getty ImagesPakistan’s tactical soundness through the middle overs has frequently come under scrutiny, not least during the sides’ earlier meeting when India turned the game around against spin. While that was largely down to Hardik Pandya and Ishan Kishan’s brilliance, Shadab Khan helps them out this time. In one of his most indifferent ODI showings, he can only seem to find long hops and full tosses as India consolidate their advantage. He does manage to get the wicket of Rohit before Afridi deceives Gill, but soon, the Colombo rains do what they had promised to all week, descending with a ferocity so intense even the Sri Lankan groundstaff have to admit defeat.Woke up on the wrong side of bed, point apiece, move on, right? Wrong. This ODI’s not yet done with Pakistan, who, in classically tragicomic circumstances, are about to be hoist by their own petard. Aggrieved at the rain scuppering what they perceived to be a strong position in Pallekele, as well as missing out on the revenue a full India-Pakistan contest would generate, they had pushed strongly for this game to be moved to a drier part of Sri Lanka. After that motion fell through due to ACC politicking, the PCB won a concession: a reserve day for this match – and this match only.And so Pakistan return for round two of the flogging they had triumphantly negotiated themselves. By now, Afridi had gone off with an injury before returning, but Haris Rauf was the bigger concern, a side strain ruling him out of the game. Pakistan don’t need any invitation to muddle up their middle overs, but now had to contend with Iftikhar Ahmed bowling at least five. India pounced on him as if he were their last meal before winter set in, greedily hoarding up the runs, stripping him skin from bone.The death overs arrive, with Virat Kohli and KL Rahul both having notched up hundreds; they remained unbeaten, of course, as the very notion of a wicket falling seemed absurd at this point. But you looked up, and suddenly, in the middle of a Naseem over, here was Iftikhar again, almost as if Spider-man had reverse-spawned into Peter Parker. But as the phantasmagorical events play out, it becomes apparent why; Naseem, too, is walking off with a shoulder injury.The skies are dark now, and not just because the sun has set. The clouds gather as Jasprit Bumrah stands at the mark, 28 hours on from Babar deciding he’d bowl first. The swing and seam Mohammad Siraj and Bumrah generated rendered them nearly unplayable. And while Pakistan have played up to what they have branded the Pakistan Way, a fear-free approach that held them in such good stead over the past month, India’s dominance and a horror two days shrinks them back into the conservative shackles they have tried so hard to break free from.Babar Azam was knocked over by a Hardik Pandya nip-backer•AFP/Getty ImagesIt isn’t until the sixth over that Fakhar Zaman gets off the mark, and when Kuldeep Yadav puts him out of his misery in the 20th, he has managed 27 off 50. By now, India’s seam-bowling allrounder Hardik Pandya had jagged one in to dispatch with Babar, and a lengthy rain delay had toyed with Pakistan’s fraying emotions, briefly raising hopes of a great escape.The weather offered them no escape, and, in truth Pakistan made no attempt at the target. Pakistan’s middle order has been a problem against worse sides, and they were not going to rediscover their groove against this charmed Indian unit. India run through a team that is melting away in front of their eyes, romping home to a victory that will take pride of place in the record books. When Kuldeep traps Faheem Ashraf in front, Pakistan still had two men to come and 228 runs to get, but that, Pakistan decide, is enough. They shake hands, prioritising getting off the pitch on a day this ghastly over throwing a hobbling Naseem and Rauf into the ring. This, for Pakistan, is not so much an ODI as Murphy’s Law stretched to breaking point.Days like these are perhaps easier to move on from, because they don’t really tell you much. Pakistan are not this bad, and India, for all their qualities, will not have it so easy again. Unlike older Pakistan sides, the penchant or appetite for reactionary recriminations doesn’t really exist anymore.Pakistan will look to nurse Naseem and Rauf back to full fitness; it is unlikely we see them again this tournament. Perhaps travelling from Hambantota to Colombo, Colombo to Multan, Multan to Lahore, Lahore to Multan, Multan to Colombo, Colombo to Pallekele, Pallekele to Colombo, Colombo to Lahore and Lahore to Colombo all in 12 days isn’t the best way to keep young men performing at the edge of their athletic ability at full fitness. Perhaps the loss is a reminder of Pakistan’s vulnerabilities and reliance on the top end of each innings, and how hard they find it when momentum slips away. Perhaps there are strategic creases to be ironed.Or perhaps, as Van Morrison crooned that day in Dubai, sometimes there’ll just be days like this.

Plight of teams like New Zealand, Australia and Sri Lanka throws spotlight on restrictions

Matt Roller02-Nov-20232:07

Have New Zealand been unlucky?

Picture the scene: two of France’s centre-backs have gone down with niggles, so a third is summoned halfway across the world 48 hours before a vital FIFA World Cup match. “We couldn’t risk being a defender down for Saturday,” explains Didier Deschamps, their manager, while awaiting scan results for his first-choice pairing.The idea seems anachronistic, not least in a sport that allows squads of up to 26 players at its World Cup. Yet it is exactly the situation facing New Zealand at the Cricket World Cup after Lockie Ferguson and Matt Henry’s injuries left them with no choice but to fly Kyle Jamieson to Bengaluru as cover for Saturday’s game against Pakistan.Cricket is not football, and the existence of substitutions clearly demands a bigger squad in one than the other. But with several teams in India experiencing an availability crisis – Australia are picking from a squad of 13 against England on Saturday – it is time for the ICC to discuss the 15-man limit on squads at world events.Related

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The issue was not raised internally at the ICC in the build-up to the World Cup but teams can propose a change via the men’s cricket committee – which incidentally, Gary Stead, New Zealand’s coach, sits on – or the chief executives’ committee. It is time they do so, because the current level is needlessly strict.New Zealand have been affected worse than most teams by injuries and left themselves open to the possibility of an availability crisis when they retained Kane Williamson in their squad despite his fractured thumb. But their scramble to find 11 fit players is a direct function of the tight cap on squad numbers.”15 men is not enough,” Steve Harmison said on ESPNcricinfo’s Matchday show. “There’s a lot of teams now having injuries at this time – and they’re all muscle injuries. There’s a lot of muscle injuries because you play, you travel, you play… it’s not easy getting around India for nine games in this space of time.”The overall impact is to damage the quality of the game: players are selected even if they are not fully fit due to the lack of viable alternatives, and teams are forced to rebalance their sides in the event of injury, even if they may not want to. It is a situation that suits nobody.Kane Williamson fractured his thumb against Bangladesh•ICC/GettyThere is a skill in selecting a squad versatile enough to overcome multiple injuries – but players can become unavailable at any time for any reason, as Australia’s absentees this week have shown: if Glenn Maxwell’s freak concussion was avoidable, then Mitchell Marsh’s return home for family reasons was clearly not.Another drawback is that selecting first-choice players who are carrying injuries – as Australia and New Zealand did with Travis Head and Williamson – becomes much more of a gamble than it should be. If the aim is to ensure the best players are involved, an extra two or three spots in a squad would help achieve that.The principal argument against bigger squads is financial. Under current regulations, the ICC funds travel, accommodation and expenses for 15 squad members and eight support staff, with teams left to foot the bill in the event that they wish to bring travelling reserves or additional staff – as many do.For most boards, the additional expenditure is nothing more than a rounding error on their balance sheet, but consider the Netherlands. Their travelling reserves, Noah Croes and Kyle Klein, have flown economy class and shared twin rooms throughout the World Cup, at a combined expense of around €22,000 across six weeks; according to the KNCB, that is more than the total cost of a short ‘A’ team tour to England.In theory, smaller squads should help competitive balance, denying the best teams the opportunity to use their depth. In practice, smaller teams are affected just as badly: Sri Lanka have carried – and paid for – travelling reserves, and have used more players in the tournament than anyone else.The 15-man cap has been constant since the 1999 World Cup despite fundamental changes to the sport and the format. There has been a marked shift in the physical demands on players, the athleticism that 50-over cricket requires and the tournament lasts significantly longer.There is also scope for more flexibility within a seven-week tournament for players to come in and out of squads. If the ICC insist on keeping the cap at 15, there should be reasonable scope for teams to replace players for a set period: if Henry is ruled out for the next week, why shouldn’t Jamieson be able to join the squad as cover for two games?At one stage of their defeat to South Africa on Wednesday, New Zealand only had 11 players fit enough to field; the same could be true for them against Pakistan this weekend. Their plight should be enough to prompt change.

When people talk only about wickets, Jadeja has instead looked at his control, and it’s brought him rich dividends

Sidharth Monga19-Oct-20231:43

Pujara: Jadeja is more accurate than a bowling machine

At 2.59pm IST on Thursday, it had already been about five minutes of treatment. Normally, you would say “get on with it”, but you were probably too involved. It could be a pivotal moment, you felt. The skills of Jasprit Bumrah and Kuldeep Yadav are irreplaceable, but Hardik Pandya performs a role for India nobody else can do: a seam-bowling allrounder good enough to hold down his place for batting alone in many other sides. Pandya was down and getting treatment.Pandya tried to run in to bowl again, but eventually went off the field and off for scans, the results of which the whole nation will await. The anxiety around the injury is understandable. There are back-ups for the best of the batters, there are bowling back-ups, and the other allrounder has a like-for-like replacement. However, does anyone have the body of work the other allrounder has?There might be others answering to the job description of Ravindra Jadeja, but there aren’t many that are doing the job as well as him. Looking at his flamboyance, Jadeja will be the last person you’d think of as a banker, but that is what he is for India.Related

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In the absence of the allrounder likelier to be missed more, Jadeja finally got to bask in some of the spotlight. He was the one who went on to bowl all ten overs, and not without reason: two wickets and just 38 runs. Seven wickets in four matches in the World Cup so far at a strike rate better than in the recent past, but that is not what has made Jadeja the asset he is.And yet Jadeja is so much of a bank clerk that the day the adjudicators decided he was the Player of the Match, Virat Kohli swooped in, and in the words of an adjudicating commentator, “stole it” with his century.Jadeja made his ODI comeback in July 2022. Since then, he has been the third-most economical bowler among those who have bowled 100 or more overs for and against the teams playing this World Cup. Only Shakib Al Hasan and Keshav Maharaj have done better than Jadeja’s 4.52 an over. In this duration, Jadeja has given India eight overs per bowling innings; only Bumrah and Mohammed Shami have bowled more per match.For all intents and purposes, Jadeja has been as good as any specialist bowler in this phase of his ODI career. His batting, admittedly not needed enough, is a significant second skill. The fielding is a significant bonus.Left by the wayside at the start of the wristspin fad, then making his comeback as an allrounder who didn’t quite nail his place with at least one discipline back in 2019, Jadeja has become this banker by going against the grain of limited-overs cricket: mastering his main deliveries and thinking less about the variations.

Jadeja hardly bowls the parallel-seam under-cutter in ODIs. He is just trying to spin the ball the hardest he can without sacrificing his control, his ability to end on the stumps, which comes naturally to him

At a time when people talk just about the wickets, Jadeja has forgotten about the wickets but instead looked at his control. As Cheteshwar Pujara observed on ESPNcricinfo, he hardly bowls the parallel-seam under-cutter in ODIs. He is just trying to spin the ball the hardest he can without sacrificing his control, his ability to end on the stumps, which comes naturally to him.Despite the extra fielder inside the circle, despite the two new balls that turn less, Jadeja – and indeed Shakib and Maharaj – has remained relevant without any mystery. Most of Jadeja’s bowling has happened in the middle overs, but he has also bowled 13 at the death at 3.74 an over.Pune was no different. On a pitch that had nothing for the spinners, with no big boundaries to play with, Jadeja dragged Bangladesh back along with Kuldeep even as they were looking to go after one or two of the bowlers in Hardik’s absence.One of the reasons behind the team’s trust in Jadeja is that left-hand batters have not been able to line him up. In this period, left-hand batters have only scored at 5.46 an over against him. He has also taken a left-hand batter out for every 24 runs he has conceded to them.Ravindra Jadeja sent back a left-hand batter, Najmul Hossain Shanto, and a right-hand batter, Litton Das, on the day•AFP/Getty ImagesNajmul Hossain Shanto was not the first left-hand batter Jadeja trapped lbw this World Cup. He did the same to Alex Carey in the first match. Around the wicket, bowled into the pitch, on middle and leg, and straightening just enough to beat the bat but not miss the stumps, it has been a lethal delivery from Jadeja.For right-hand batters, who other than Steven Smith to attest to the quality of Jadeja? That dismissal was straight out of Tests: bowling him top of off without letting him come forward, and opening his stance up with the drift. Coming forward is not the prayer you are looking for because he has been hitting the outer half of the bat regularly. No longer can you play him as a left-arm seam bowler angling the old ball in.It leaves batters with no option but to play the sweep, which is high-risk at Jadeja’s pace. Mohammad Rizwan and Mushfiqur Rahim tried that with limited success because they didn’t succeed in pushing Jadeja off his length.One unruly customer served, back to issuing currency notes with a smile. David Steele, the grey-haired, bespectacled and unlikely Ashes hero in the 1970s, was called the bank clerk who went to war. Jadeja is the gladiator who goes to bank.

She reined her batting in at the start as the WACA conditions demanded, before unleashing boundaries all around the strip to break records in front of her proud parents and awed opponents

Tristan Lavalette16-Feb-2024In the last over before tea on day two, just 10 runs away from a historic Test double-century, Annabel Sutherland was desperate to reach the milestone. With Australia’s first innings lead nearing 450 runs against South Africa at the WACA, she was unsure when her captain Alyssa Healy would declare.Sutherland made her intent clear by smashing seamer Nadine de Klerk for a gorgeous boundary through mid-on off the first ball. Just six runs away, Sutherland then swung wildly across the line aiming to hit over midwicket but did not connect. The crowd of 1300, a figure that had surpassed expectations with history in the air, almost simultaneously groaned.”I was keen to just get it out of the way and played a dodgy shot… tried to hoik one over midwicket. I had to take a bit of a breath,” Sutherland told reporters after play.Related

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She had words of encouragement from batting partner Kim Garth and regained her composure. Sutherland smashed boundaries off the last two balls before tea to become just the 10th player in women’s Test cricket history to score a double-century.”It’s pretty special, probably hasn’t quite sunk in yet what exactly it means to me,” she said. “So nice just to spend the day out there and soak up what a great place it is to bat on the WACA.”Having reached the landmark on her 248th delivery, she had easily smashed the fastest double-ton – the previous record (308 balls) was held by Australian great Karen Rolton. At 22, Sutherland became the youngest batter to reach the feat behind only India’s Mithali Raj.Sutherland was within reach of the world record women’s Test score – 242 by Pakistan’s Kiran Baluch against West Indies in 2004 – but firstly she needed to surpass the Australian highest score of 213 by team-mate Ellyse Perry – a player she has often been compared to.Shortly after tea, unaware of the records in her wake, Sutherland fell agonisingly short on 210 after failing to execute a scoop shot off left-arm spinner Chloe Tryon.”I’m very happy for her to keep that record, she deserves it,” Sutherland said of Perry. “I’ve definitely picked her brains along the way.”The dismissal ended her 256-ball masterpiece, which included 27 fours and two sixes. Sutherland earned a standing ovation from the crowd, including from her parents. James Sutherland, her father, was a long-time former Cricket Australia chief executive.”I just gave him a hug before. I think they’re just super proud and so nice for them to be here,” she said of her parents.

“I’m very happy for her to keep that record, she deserves it. I’ve definitely picked her brains along the way.”Sutherland on not beating Perry’s record for highest women’s Test score by an Australian

With a number of batters in the match undone on a green-tinged surface by driving on the up early in their innings, a cardinal sin at the WACA, Sutherland superbly implemented a disciplined approach.She was extremely watchful early and only scored seven runs off her first 35 balls faced. Once settled, Sutherland unfurled belligerent strokes around the wicket. She confidently counterattacked the second new ball to smash consecutive fours off debutant quick Masabata Klaas – who had torn through Australia’s top order on day one – and registered her second Test century shortly before lunch.”First 20 to 30 balls… the most challenging at the WACA, just getting used to the bounce and the pace,” Sutherland said. “I was thinking about that and felt like I left pretty well early.”It was just about staying sharp, but if the ball was there to hit, keep in good position and go with it.”It continued a superb all-round performance for Sutherland, who had taken 3 for 19 in South Africa’s first innings of 76.Sutherland’s knock earned high praise from her opponents. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that good an innings live,” de Klerk said. “She put bowlers under pressure and was aggressive even when we took the new ball and just took us on.”Spin didn’t work, seam didn’t work and she was just smashing us all around the ground. That was a brilliant innings.”

Once seen as a launchpad for players to pitch for higher honours, the Under-19 World Cup has become just one of many avenues for Indians to show their class

Shashank Kishore17-Jan-2024In 2018, Rahul Dravid, then head coach of India Under-19s, was unequivocal about players being allowed to have no more than just one crack at junior cricket’s biggest prize – the Under-19 World Cup. Dravid reasoned that players would stagnate if they overstayed their welcome. The move greatly helped reduce cases of age-fudging, while also directly putting the onus on the players to make the step up.Until recently, the tournament was seen as a launchpad for players to pitch for higher honours. Shubman Gill, player of the tournament in 2018, made his senior team debut within a year. Prithvi Shaw, who led that victorious team, was fast-tracked even earlier. But things are different six years on.The Under-19 World Cup has become just one of many avenues for players to showcase their abilities. Robust IPL scouting at state-level tournaments and franchise leagues, such as the Maharashtra Premier League (MPL) or Tamil Nadu Premier League (TNPL) have softened the impact for players who don’t make the India Under-19 cut. It’s under this changing landscape that India enter the 2024 Under-19 World Cup as defending champions.Related

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Allrounder Arshin Kulkarni was a find at the inaugural MPL. Despite featuring in only three games, he hit six more sixes (19) than any other batter in a tournament where the likes of Ruturaj Gaikwad, Kedar Jadhav and Rahul Tripathi participated. Those exploits earned him a senior team debut for Maharashtra at the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. He’s one of only two players in the current squad to be signed at the IPL auction, by Lucknow Super Giants.Aravelly Avanish, one of two wicketkeepers in the India Under-19 World Cup squad, made heads turn at the quadrangular series in November. He walked into bat at 95 for 5 in a mammoth chase of 376 and ended up smashing 163 off 93 balls, including 13 sixes, to help his side win. He topped that feat by smashing 274 runs in six innings at the Vinoo Mankad Trophy (Under-19 one-day competition), striking at 148. These performances earned him a List A debut with Hyderabad at the Vijay Hazare Trophy. He was signed by Chennai Super Kings.Musheer Khan, one of two allrounders in India’s current Under-19 World Cup squad, has already made his senior state debut for Mumbai on the back of exploits at the age-group level, when he led Mumbai to the final of the Cooch Behar Trophy last year, where he was adjudged Player of the Tournament for his 632 runs and 32 wickets.Uday Saharan, the captain, who hails from Sri Ganganagar in Rajasthan, shifted base to Bhatinda to pursue cricket after his father, who was also his first coach, was convinced of his talent. Saharan led Punjab’s U-14s and U-16s and emerged as a prolific run-getter at the U-19s.There’s another diametrically opposite case of Prakhar Chaturvedi, who missed the under-19 bus, but has managed to attract attention with his record-breaking quadruple century in the Cooch Behar Trophy final for Karnataka earlier this week, with talks of a Ranji debut gaining steam.Cases like Musheer, Avanish, Chaturvedi and Kulkarni underline how the perception that the Under-19 World Cup is a launch vehicle for young Indian cricketers to pitch for higher honours is slowly changing. While it’s true the tournament can fast-track players, like Shaw or Gill were on the back of a title-winning run in New Zealand, the reverse is also true.Ask Arshdeep Singh, who was a reserve fast bowler in that victorious class of 2018, but has now leapfrogged his batch mates to become a key member of India’s white-ball attacks. No bowler has played more matches or taken more wickets than him in T20Is since 2023. In comparison, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, India’s bowling MVP in that tournament, and touted as a future star finds himself out of sight. He’s neither in the mix for his state side Rajasthan nor has he found takers in the IPL after the early euphoria of his age-group days. Manjot Kalra, who hit a match-winning century in that final, has disappeared into the oblivion, having tried to fight a cruel system in Delhi.The India Under-19 team with the World Cup trophy, in 2018•Getty Images”At the age-group level, there’s a tendency for young players to let coaches do the thinking for them,” explains Devdutt Padikkal, who narrowly missed out on being picked for the Under-19 World Cup in 2018 but has forced his way into the reckoning through domestic cricket and IPL. “As a young cricketer, you need to challenge that notion. This is what being part of the NCA high-performance camp taught us. There was a lot of focus on developing personalities, not just a squad for the World Cup.”That aspect of player development has remained robust even in 2024. However, India’s build-up has been low-key, partly due to some restructuring at a management level. It wasn’t until June that BCCI appointed a chairperson for the men’s junior selection panel. This has meant fewer opportunities for the management to have a look at a larger pool of players.For perspective, between 2016 and 2018, as many as 27 players were part of the Under-19 system for India at different stages. The team played two full series, home and away, against England, featured in two Asia Cups, followed by a quadrangular series with Bangladesh and Afghanistan. These were outside the Under-19 domestic tournament and the Challenger series where several others got opportunities.It helped then that Dravid donned the role of a head coach both at the Under-19s as well as India A. It led to continuity in the transition phase, which players like Washington Sundar, Rishabh Pant and Ishan Kishan benefitted from. Dravid consulted state coaches regarding certain players, and meticulously ensured the system looked after them.Prithvi Shaw and Shubman Gill after India’s Under-19 World Cup win•Getty ImagesDravid has since handed the baton to VVS Laxman, and while much of the processes remain the same, there are still some significant changes. The investment into grassroots cricket hasn’t quite been the same, for a multitude of reasons – covid being one of them – which has meant the selectors have had fewer options than earlier to formulate their squads. Which perhaps explains why players like Chaturvedi may have slipped through the cracks.The current batch only came together in August for a series of NCA camps and have had just two proper tournaments – Asia Cup and the recently concluded tri-series in South Africa to prepare, outside of BCCI’s domestic tournaments. At the Asia Cup, India were knocked out in the semi-final, but the graph has significantly gone up since then with the side remaining unbeaten to clinch the tri-series.For long, India have profited from a robust system that has delivered impeccable results at the U-19s. For the first time in a while, that foundation has looked a tad shaky, with some of the other teams matching India in terms of preparedness. Whatever the end result may be, age-group players are unlikely to slip into oblivion like they did two decades ago. Remember Gaurav Dhiman from the class of 2004?The hype around them, irrespective of whether they win or lose, will continue to multiply several folds, due to the sheer weight of opportunities. And for that, they have the system to thank.

Batters in T20 are hitting the ball miles and not caring to see where it has gone. It might seem like flex, but that’s not all it is

Osman Samiuddin01-Apr-2024MS Dhoni famously hit a monster back in 2009. Martin Guptill’s been hitting them since around the same time, often enough so that he could be seen as a pioneer – except, he’s from New Zealand, so is hardly going to go round screaming “Trademark”. Instead, if pushed, people might recall Andre Fletcher as the first guy to blow it into their lives. And these days, it is everywhere.We are on – in case you hadn’t worked out the fairly tenuous link between the three names – the no-look six, the season’s new aesthetic must-have. All the white-ball kids are trying it. It lives rent-free on Tik Tok. It’s also what drags cricket into the brotherhood of Big Sport, the no-look six carrying the same brio – or is it hubris? – as the no-look pass in football and basketball, and the no-look winner in tennis.The name is slightly disingenuous, of course. It’s not that batters are not looking at the ball as they strike it. That fundamental, of keeping eyes on the ball till impact, remains (and actually stands reinforced). No-look here refers to the subversion of the instinct to watch where the ball has gone it has been hit, whether it is to make sure it was hit right, to simply admire the handiwork, or basic game awareness.The other day in the IPL, Dewald Brevis had the cheek to dish one out to Rashid Khan, a mighty six over long-off that looked all wrong but was all right. His bat’s arc swung across his own body, so it looked for all the world like he had sliced the shot, but which was to help him keep the head down at impact. And he kept it down, not needing to see what he would have known as soon as he struck it, that this one was going big.Only a week before, Rashid was breaking the internet with his own outrageous no-look six, in Sharjah against Ireland. He flipped the ball over deep square leg and then, head bowed and bat upright by his left shoulder, held a pose that looked a bit like an old man getting the dab wrong.

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