Vaibhav Suryavanshi continued his red-hot form heading into the U19 World Cup and went on to play a phenomenal knock of 96 against Scotland in the warm-up match. He hit nine boundaries and seven towering sixes in what was an explosive knock before being dismissed on the 50th delivery that he faced.
Suryavanshi stars against South Africa
This comes after the 14-year-old had played a sensational knock of 127 against South Africa U19 in the third and final youth ODI of the series. He finished as the top-scorer of the series with 206 runs in three matches and was even adjudged as the Player of the Series. The left-hand batter was handed the captaincy for the first time in the series and it proved to be a menumental success as the Men in Blue completed a series sweep over the Proteas by 3-0.
Suryavanshi has been in top form in both domestic and international cricket. He had played an incredible knock of 190 for Bihar in the Vijay Hazare Trophy against Arunachal Pradesh. This was his maiden hundred in List A cricket and his otherthree hundreds have come in T20s. Additionally, the teenage batting sensation had also played a blistering inning of 171 against UAE U19 in Asia Cup Rising Stars in December.
Mhatre flops again
Meanwhile, India skipper Ayush Mhatre failed to score big on his return from the wrist injury and got dismissed for 22 runs against Scotland. Not only has he not scored a hundred in youth ODIs as of yet, he had not been able to fire throughout the Asia Cup Rising Stars either. It remains to be seen if he will be able to pick up his form in the U19 World Cup.
On the other hand, the U19 World Cup is all set to begin from January 15 in Namibia and Zimbabwe. India will be playing the opening game of the tournament against USA and their other two matches of the group stage will be against Bangladesh and New Zealand. Mhatre will be leading the team in the tournament with Vihaan Malhotra being his deputy.
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India squad for U19 World Cup: Ayush Mhatre (c), R.S. Ambrish, Kanishk Chouhan, D. Deepesh, Mohamed Enaan, Aaron George, Abhigyan Kundu, Kishan Kumar Singh, Vihaan Malhotra, Udhav Mohan, Henil Patel, Khilan A. Patel, Harvansh Singh, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Vedant Trivedi.