ICC U19 Cricket World Cup UAE 2014 teams and players eye tournament records

The 10th edition of the ICC U19 Cricket World Cup (ICC U19 CWC) will be staged in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from 14 February to 1 March 2014. For some of the best budding cricketers from across the world that will take part in it, this will be a fantastic opportunity to prove themselves by entering the history books and helping their teams do so.


The record for most ICC U19 CWC titles is jointly held by Australia and India, which have won three titles each. India won the trophy in 2000, 2008 and 2012, while Australia was the champion in 1988, 2002 and 2010.


Pakistan is the only nation to have won back-to-back titles, having triumphed in 2004 and 2006. England is the only other team to have won the competition (in 1998), so for all other sides in the fray, this will be an opportunity to snare a historic first title.


From the teams taking part in the ICC U19 CWC UAE 2014, Australia is the most successful one in the competition overall. With a win-percentage of 79.66 after nine editions, it has traditionally been one of the teams to beat.


Below is a table of the 10 most successful teams at the event, sorted in descending order of win-percentage (includes both Super League and Plate Championship matches):


Australia holds the record for the most ICC U19 CWC matches played (61), followed by India and the West Indies (59 each), England and Pakistan (57 each) and Sri Lanka (56).


The ICC U19 CWC, which has been a 50-over tournament from its inception in 1988, has seen quite a few big totals of more than 350 being posted. The highest total since 2004, though, has been South Africa’s 359-6 versus Namibia in Brisbane in the last edition. No other total since 2004 figures in the list of the 10 highest totals, as illustrated in the table below:


Batsmen looking to become the most prolific in the history of the tournament, however, face a tall order in getting past the tallyof Ireland’s Eoin Morgan. He went on to replicate his efforts with England at the senior level, starring in its ICC World Twenty20 2010 title-triumph. Morgan is at the top of the pile in the list of the tournament’s 10 highest run-scorers.

Dhawan holds the record for the most runs scored in a single edition (505 in 2004) and the highest average in a single edition for those that have scored a minimum of 500 runs. With flat pitches expected for this edition in the UAE, quite a few stroke-players should set their sights on those marks later this month.


Another list that illustrates how young batsmen are finding it harder to score big runs now than they did 10 years ago is the one of the highest individual scores at the ICC U19 CWC.


With bowlers seemingly having more of an upper hand in the last four editions than they did in the five before those, it comes as no surprise that seven of the 10 highest wicket-takers plied their trade between 2006 and 2012, in this event.

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