Manjot Kalra, the Delhi lad who batted India to World Cup title
SPEED DEMON
The 2018 edition saw the rise of India’s future fast bowlers, symbolised by Kamlesh Nagarkoti. The 18-year-old regularly touched 145kph and proved a handful for batsmen.
ECONOMIC TRIO 28 14 13 76 34 23 5 13 1 1 0 8 216
Bowling: Shivam Mavi 8.2-146-1, Ishan Porel 7-1-30-2, Shiva Singh 10-0-36-2, Kamlesh Nagarkoti 9-0-41-2, Abhishek Sharma 6-0-30-0, Anukul Roy 7-0-32-2.
29 101 31 47 Explosive left-handed opener Manjot Kalra on Saturday played the most crucial knock of his career so far, smacking an unbeaten 101 to power India to their fourth U-19 World Cup win. Opening with captain Prithvi Shaw (29), Kalra once again provided India U-19 a rollicking start. Having started the World Cup with an 86-run knock against Australia, Kalra had a dip in form which saw him scoring 18 in the next three matches.
However, it was in the big semi-final against Pakistan that Kalra was back among runs, as he cracked seven fours to score 47. His quick hands, ability to pierce the gaps ferociously and not being subdued in pressure situations gave an example of a fine batsman in the making, who was embarrassingly asked to once again undergo age-verification test by his home board, the DDCA, despite BCCI’s clearance. Before that episode, Kalra had cemented his claim for a spot in the U-19 World Cup squad with a fine century against England in an away Youth Test. The lefthander smacked 122 off 117 balls in that outing. In the U-19 Challenger Trophy final in November 2017, Kalra’s 72 fired India Blue to a comfortable 39-run victory. But Kalra had made his first impression in the Cooch Behar Trophy 2016-17, scoring 742 runs in the tournament to power Delhi to the final. He hammered one century and six fifties, averaging 49.47 in the tournament.
MUMBAI: