Indian Colts left with their heads high after winning the fifth place playoff’s against West Indies in Sharjah. This was achieved courtesy a good overall batting performance where almost every batsman contributed. The starring roles were played by Ankush Bains, Sanju Samson and Shreyas Iyer. Only Sarfaraz Khan missed out in what was a clinical batting performance by the batting unit and they posted 340 on the scorecard. Opening the batting for the West Indies was Tagenarine Chanderpaul, the son of West Indian legend Shivnarine Chanderpaul. As expected of him, he held one end down, even thought wickets continued to tumble at the other end. Left handed like his father, he gave several impersonations of Shiv like removing the bail and marking his guard. He also batted sedately and strung up fifty partnerships with Tristan Coleman and Nicholas Pooran. But the total of 340 proved beyond reach and it was a case of fighting a losing battle. The Indian bowlers managed to restrict the opposition batting by choking up the runs and crucially grabbed many wickets on the way, thus depriving any momentum for the West Indians. CV Milind grabbed two wickets while the other bowlers also bowled economically and grabbed a wicket each.
Even though this Indian team, one of the pre tournament favorite, could not live up to the expectations, there were many positives that they can take home. They just had one bad day against the English in the quarterfinal, otherwise there performed as expected. Sanju Samson was consistent throughout the tournament and is one name that can be expected to be seen in the Indian senior team in the years to come. He can take the examples of previous under 19 players like Sehwag, Kaif, Yuvraj, Pathan, Jadeja and Kohli. They grabbed attention in the under 19 world cup and soon national callups arrived. The present under 19 has the potential in Vijay Zol, Sanju Samson and Sarfarz Khan being spoken about highly in the cricketing circuits. If they keep their heads and concentrate on their game, they can repeat the achievements of the names mentioned above.
