Coolidge (Antiga). The legendary teams of India and Australia, who defeated their rivals on the field and the corona virus off the field, will face each other in the semi-finals of the Under-19 World Cup on Wednesday. India’s preparations were greatly hampered due to the Corona epidemic. There was no national camp or tournament in the last two years and recently the team came here only after playing the Asia Cup.
Four-time champion Indian team started the tournament by defeating South Africa by 45 runs. After this, however, barely 11 players could gather against Ireland after many players were found to be corona infected. Five players were not available in the second group match against Ireland. Captain Yash Dhul, Vice Captain Sheikh Rashid, Aaradhya Yadav, Manav Parakh and Siddharth Yadav were hit by Corona. All five could not play against Ireland and Uganda, after which BCCI had to send alternate players. Six reserve players were fielded against Uganda. Now India has a strong team and Nishant Sindhu has also recovered from the infection.
India will play the semi-finals for the fourth time in a row. However, India will have to improve their batting in the last overs. India has batsmen like Harnoor Singh, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Raj Bawa apart from Dhul and Rashid. In the bowling, pacers Ravi Kumar, Rajvardhan Hengergekar, spinners Vicky Ostwal and Kaushal Tambe will be eyeing medium pacer Bawa. Two-time champions Australia defeated Pakistan in the quarter-finals. They have a great opener, Tig Wealey, who has done exceptionally well so far. India will have to curb his bat. India had defeated Australia in the practice match.
Teams :
India: Yash Dhul (captain), Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Harnoor Singh, Raj Bawa, Kaushal Tambe, Dinesh Banana, Nishant Sindhu, Vicky Ostwal, Rajvardhan Hengergekar, Vasu Vats, Ravi Kumar.
Australia: Cooper Connolly (captain), Campwell Kelaway, Teague Willey, Aiden Cahill, Corey Miller, Jack Seinfeld, Tobias Snell, William Salzman, Jack Nisbet, Lachlan Shaw, Tom Whitney.
Leave a Reply