PRE MATCH ANALYSIS
Follow UsJudging purely based on scoresheets, India Under-19s' campaign in this ongoing Youth World Cup certainly seems like a dominant one. Four comfortable victories in four outings, despite losing their two best batters in a couple of those games due to COVID, is a commendable achievement for sure. There is no denying that.
However, digging deep, we tend to find an area in which the 'Boys In Blue' still seem a bit vulnerable going into their semi-final clash against Australia. Yes, we are of course referring to the patchy Indian batting efforts in the tournament, especially when they were not minnow-bashing.
In their opening encounter against South Africa, India were asked to bat first on a damp surface in Guyana and soon became 11 for 2 in the sixth over. It was primarily skipper Yash Dhull who bailed them out of that hole with one of the best knocks in this competition — a well-compiled 82 off 100 deliveries. But at the other end the batters who got starts failed to convert those into big scores. As a result, India could only manage to post a below-par 232.
Thankfully, the in-form bowling defended that score, that too by a margin of 45 runs. Now taking a jump-cut to their next crunch game, against Bangladesh in the quarter-finals, the boys were chasing merely 112. In the second half of that encounter, the conditions seemed in favour of the batters. Yet Dhull's team got to that target after losing as many as five wickets.
In both those matches, pacers had been India's nemesis — both with the new ball and in the middle-overs with some aggressive short-pitched stuff by the likes of Matthew Boast and Ripon Mondol. And Australia must have picked it up. They have a versatile bowling attack with the likes of Tom Whitney averaging 13 in the competition.
Furthermore, this semi-final game will be played at the Coolidge Cricket Ground in Antigua, which is one of the low-scoring venues in this Under-19 World Cup. The pitch here is a little bit on the damp side and yet to settle in properly. Hence, no team in the tournament has managed to go past the 200-run mark here as batting, especially in the first half of the day, has been a stiff ask.
Under these circumstances, the Indian team would like their batters to show character and avoid any further wobble. When these two teams met in a warm-up game in Guyana, India chased down 269 with nine wickets to spare and opener Harnoor Singh scored an unbeaten 100. Since then the Chandigarh boy has scores of 1, 88, 15 and 0.
Coming into this World Cup, the left-handed batter was India's in-form player at the top. However, he has struggled to get going against quality bowling attacks and it has been a huge cause of concern for the team management.
Apart from Harnoor, the Indian camp would also like to see vice-captain Shaik Rasheed converting his starts into significant contributions. Down the order wicketkeeper-batsman Dinesh Bana, who was quite surprisingly preferred as the first-choice keeper in the XI ahead of Aaradhya Yadav, is due with the bat as well.
Thankfully, this team has plenty of all-rounders and they bat deep. That is why despite the top as well as middle-order fumbling on a few occasions, they were not being pushed in any of the matches. Of course, we are not ignoring the contributions of the likes of Angrish Raghuvanshi and Raj Bawa with bat in hand.
However, against Australia, the level of the challenge will go up significantly. Though for skipper Dhull the Aussies are not posing any extra threat.
"The Australian bowling attack is a normal one and we focus on building partnerships as soon as we lose quick wickets," said the Indian captain in his pre-match presser while referring to questions related to their patchy batting line-up taking on in-form Australian bowlers.
"Our focus then shifts towards building partnerships [in case of early wickets] so that we could score more in death overs."
During the non-match days, all these Indian batters had gone through extensive net sessions under the guidance of VVS Laxman. Now time for the preparation is over and they need to repay the faith of the team management.
