Townsville, Australia: Skipper Unmukt Chand led from the front to help India lift the U-19 Cricket World Cup here today.
Playing a captain’s knock, Chand slammed an unbeaten 111 runs and guided India to beat Australia by six wickets.
India needing to chase 226 made a jittery start after they lost Prashant Chopra for duck. It was then Chand and Baba Aparajith that steadied the innings early on and scored at a swift rate to put up 73 runs for the second wicket.
But then Aparajith fell in the 15th over after being caught by Ashton Turner at extra cover.
The wicket saw Australia tightening their grip on India and they bowled two maidens. The pressure saw India losing two wickets in form of Vijay Zol and Hanuma Vihari.
Four wickets down, came in Smit Patel and along with Chand they shifted to damage control mode. They kept calm and kept the scoreboard ticking with single, doubles and occasional boundaries. The asking rate kept climbing up but then they stayed away from taking any unnecessary risks.
Smith and Unmukt put a partnership of 130 for the fifth wicket guiding India to the target with 2.2 overs to spare.
Chand’s knock of 111 was laced with seven fours and six huge sixes whereas Patel hit four boundaries for his 62.
Earlier electing to bat first, Australia made a shaky start and lost four early wickets but it was two good partnerships between Trevor Head and their skipper William Bosisto. They put up 65 runs partnership and after Head departed for 37 and then it was Bosisto with Turner for 93 runs.
Bosisto remained not out on 87 while Turner scored 43.
Sandeep Sharma was the wrecker-in-chief as returned with figures of 54-4.
Unmukt Chand was named the man of the match for his match-winning knock.
India had earleir won the tournament in 2008 and 1008 under the captaincy of Mohd. Kaif and Virat Kohli respectively.
By Indian Sports News Network
