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The Hindu
29-05-2025
- Sport
- The Hindu
The rise and rise of the young Indian cricketers
In an era long gone by, Afghanistan's left-arm wrist-spinner Noor Ahmad would have walked away with the Purple Cap for being the highest wicket-taker at the conclusion of the league phase of the Indian Premier League. Noor might still do so – he leads this year's race with 24 wickets despite his team, Chennai Super Kings, propping up the table for the first time in the tournament's history – but if Prasidh Krishna continues his red-hot form, he will get at least one opportunity to build on his tally of 23 wickets when Gujarat Titans take on Mumbai Indians in Friday's Eliminator in Mullanpur. The IPL is essentially by the Indians and for the Indians – yes, yes, it does include top players from most of the rest of the world – and never has that been more apparent than in Season 18, when Indian stars established and emerging have taken the tournament by storm. There are notable exceptions, as there are bound to be – Noor, for one, alongside Trent Boult and Josh Hazlewood among the bowlers -- and Mitch Marsh, Jos Buttler and Nicholas Pooran when it comes to the batters. But homegrown talent has held massive sway, reiterating that the future of Indian T20 cricket, at the very least, is in safe, competent, young hands. The phenoms No one is younger, of course, than the kid from Samastipur in Bihar who very few knew about two months back. Vaibhav Suryavanshi had made his Ranji Trophy debut at 13 and already scored a century for India Under-19 against Australia Under-19 in a four-day 'Test' last year, but it was the grand stage that the IPL is that propelled him into international limelight. At 14 years and 32 days, he became the youngest batter to score a century in senior T20 cricket; his 35-ball ton for Rajasthan Royals against Gujarat Titans is the fastest by an Indian. He might have begun the tournament as a starry-eyed teenager who must have gobbled at a price tag of ₹1.1 crore, but he ends it a marked lad, someone of whom great things are already being expected and who is, unfairly, drawing comparison with India's most famous teen phenom, a certain Sachin Tendulkar. Suryavanshi and his India Under-19 captain Ayush Mhatre, who sparkled after belatedly being blooded by CSK, are already spreading waves of awe and fear within the junior fraternity – outside it, too, but it's the Under-19 opponents who are most likely to feel the brunt of their fury in the immediate future. The Indian colts travel to England next month for five 50-over games and two four-day fixtures. Perhaps echoing the sentiments of the rest of the cricket world, former New Zealand captain and CSK coach Stephen Fleming admitted he worried 'a little bit about the Under-19 oppositions that will come up against two pretty handy openers when the World Cup comes around.' 'It's amazing how much talent they have, how composed they are,' Fleming, who himself was only 19 when he first played for his country, crowed. The swashbuckling 14-year-old left-hander and the more orthodox 17-year-old right-hander from Mumbai headlined a rash of extraordinary but lesser-known talent that took the league stage of the tournament by storm with the bat. Priyansh Arya might appear of a different vintage from the two teenagers – he is only 24 but how do you compete with 14 and 17 for eyeballs? – but he has had a memorable first season. Bought by Punjab Kings for ₹3.8 crore, he has more than justified the price tag and the expectations with 424 runs at the whopping strike-rate of 183.6, showing that marrying consistency with naked aggression comes reasonably easy to him. He announced himself early in the tournament with a hundred and hasn't disappointed since; like his equally fearsome opening partner Prabhsimran Singh (499 runs), he will have at least two more chances to add to that tally, given that the Kings have made it to the playoffs (as the top-ranked team, no less) for the first time since 2014. Racking it up Of the 10 batters who racked up more than 500 runs in the league phase are seven Indians, none of whom can be called a newcomer by any stretch of imagination. B. Sai Sudharsan, who leads the race for the Orange Cap with 679 runs, 30 more than Gujarat Titans opening partner and new India Test skipper Shubman Gill, is perhaps the 'newest comer' of this bunch. The other five – Suryakumar Yadav, Virat Kohli (who has topped 600 runs for a third season on the bounce), Yashasvi Jaiswal, K.L. Rahul and Shreyas Iyer – have all been there and done that. Indians have accounted for seven of the nine hundreds this far (Mitchell Marsh and Heinrich Klaasen are the exceptions). Outside of this '500 club' and those mentioned previously, Abhishek Sharma has continued on his merry way, Ishan Kishan has sets hearts aflutter in Hyderabad and who can forget Jitesh Sharma's extraordinary onslaught on Tuesday night that muscled Royal Challengers Bengaluru past Rishabh Pant's Lucknow Super Giants and to the second place at the end of the league skirmishes? Openers Sai Sudharsan and Gill, alongside former England skipper Buttler who will miss the playoffs due to international commitments, accounted for the bulk of Gujarat's runs this season. The left-handed Sai Sudharsan and his equally classy right-hander mirror-image captain have together put on 909 runs as an opening pair, including an unseparated 205 against Delhi Capitals in a most surreal run-chase. A little while back, in the immediacy of Rohit Sharma and Kohli's retirement from T20Is, it seemed as if Gill and Jaiswal would be the long-term 20-over openers for the country, an opinion that gathered pace when they put on 67 and 156 (unbroken) in successive outings in Zimbabwe last July. Then, Abhishek and Sanju Samson threatened to queer the pitch with Gill and Jaiswal away on Test duty. Now, a new pair is in town, making it impossible to overlook its exploits. India seem spoiled for batting choices. See how Tilak Varma, who made successive centuries whilst batting at No. 3 in South Africa last December, hasn't even figured in this piece till now? These are the obvious success stories but there are others who don't have the same inflated numbers and yet have made a grand impact – men like Dhruv Jurel, Ayush Badoni, Ashutosh Sharma, Shashank Singh, even Vipraj Nigam and Riyan Parag, who smashed six sixes in as many deliveries (spread over two overs) in a losing cause. Several of them have been around for a while and while Jurel and Parag are already internationals, the rest know that if they aspire to don the India Blue, they still have plenty of work ahead of them. What a luxury for T20 captain Suryakumar, head coach Gautam Gambhir and selection panel chief Ajit Agarkar to be able to dip into an overflowing pool of riches that is clearly the envy of the rest of the world. If the batters have hogged the space till now, put it down to cricket being a batter's game. But India's bowling group hasn't been too shabby either. Of the 17 bowlers who had at least 15 wickets after the 70-match first phase, only five are non-Indians. There is a nice blend of the proven and the promising, of pacers and spinners, of left-armers and right-armers, of the orthodox and the unconventional among the dozen Indians in that grouping. There is Jasprit Bumrah – of course there will be Jasprit Bumrah, even if he missed the first four matches – and there are the usual suspects, Arshdeep Singh and Varun Chakaravarthy and Harshal Patel and Kuldeep Yadav but most heartening must be the form shown by Prasidh and the spunk revealed by R. Sai Kishore, the curly-mopped other left-handed 'Sai' from Chennai who led the State side in the Ranji Trophy last season. Prasidh has been terrific to watch all season, making use of his bounce and his recent burst of confidence and feel-good to produce wicket-taking deliveries with exceptional consistency. He is among the tallest fast bowlers in India currently and is beginning to make excellent use of that feature, hitting the lengths that make it impossible for batters to get him away. His wickets have come at one every 14.34 deliveries but that's not only because batters have tried to go after him. He hasn't 'bought' his wickets, if you like, as an economy of 7.90 runs an over will testify. Having impressed on his Test comeback after 12 months in Sydney in January, it will be a huge surprise if he doesn't line up alongside Bumrah at Headingley in three weeks' time when the first Test gets underway. This isn't a case of the IPL fast-tracking a Test career, it is just that Prasidh has reiterated that even in 20-over cricket, traditional values will still hold a bowler in grand stead. Sai Kishore tapered off a little after a glorious start but like Prasidh, he is also a smart and orthodox cookie but hardly unidimensional. He has been on the selectors' radar for a while and with Ravindra Jadeja in the autumn of his career, should fancy his chances across formats though the re-emergence of Krunal Pandya, who has 15 wickets to Sai Kishore's 17 but is handier with the bat, might dictate otherwise, at least in the 20-over game. To many, the IPL is an opportunity to make a very good livelihood out of cricket while reconciling to the knowledge that they might not seriously tickle the national selectors' mind space. To others like Sai Kishore, the IPL is only a springboard to greater heights, stemming from a realistic assessment of one's abilities and aspirations. As the tournament hurtles towards its business end, there will be grandstand performances, for sure, but it will take something special to overshadow the league riches. Now, that's something to look forward to, right?
Time of India
22-05-2025
- Sport
- Time of India
'Ayush Mhatre gave a feeling that he can be a leader': Mumbai head coach Omkar Salvi
Ayush Mhatre will lead India U-19 on the tour of England. (AP) Mumbai: In another boost to his nascent, promising career, Mumbai's 17-year-old opener Ayush Mhatre was on Thursday appointed as the captain of the India Under-19 team for the upcoming tour of England. The squad also includes Bihar's 14-year-old sensation Vaibhav Suryavanshi . Both Mhatre and Suryavanshi have put in impressive performances in their debut IPL seasons. Mhatre has scored 206 runs in six matches at an average of 34.33, with one fifty. While Suryavanshi had a sensational season for Rajasthan Royals, scoring 252 runs in seven matches at an average of 36.00, with one hundred and one fifty each. Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW! In fact, the vice-captain of the team, Abhigyan Kundu, is also from Mumbai. Indications are that the national junior selection committee, led by Thilak Naidu, is keen to appoint Mhatre as the captain of the India Under-19 team for the U-19 World Cup in Zimbabwe and Namibia in January 2026. IPL 2025: Eric Simons explains why CSK signed 17-year-old Ayush Mhatre Like Mhatre, the last India U-19 captain from Mumbai, Prithvi Shaw too hailed from Virar, a far-off suburb in the city. Shaw had led the India Under-19 team to the U-19 World Cup triumph in New Zealand in 2018. Mhatre has captained the Mumbai Under-16 team in the past. The teenaged batter has put in impressive performances since being roped in by CSK mid-season, scoring 206 runs in six matches @ 34.33, with a strike rate of 187.27. "Ayush Mhatre is a lovely kid who's got a very calm head on his shoulders. Being around him in the dressing room gave me the feeling that he is someone who can definitely be a leader. He's very confident of himself and also a self-assured team man and that's going to keep this India Under-19 team in good stead. I wish him all the best and I'm sure he has many more leadership roles that beckon him in the near future," Mumbai head coach Omkar Salvi told TOI. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Entrevista exclusiva: a verdade sobre o magnésio que ninguém te contou AlwaysFit Undo Mhatre, who was acquired by Triumph Knights Mumbai North East in the T20 Mumbai League, Kundu and Naman Pushpak, who has been named in the standby players' list, will now not be able to take part as the trio will attend the India Under-19 camp in Bengaluru. The England tour, scheduled from June 24 to July 23, comprises a 50-over warm-up match, followed by a five-match Youth One-Day series and two Multi-Day matches against the England Under-19 side. We have got strong ideas for next year: Stephen Fleming India U-19 Squad: Ayush Mhatre (Captain), Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Vihaan Malhotra, Maulyarajsinh Chavda, Rahul Kumar, Abhigyan Kundu (Vice-Captain & WK), Harvansh Singh (WK), R S Ambrish, Kanishk Chouhan, Khilan Patel, Henil Patel, Yudhajit Guha, Pranav Raghavendra, Mohammed Enaan, Aditya Rana, Anmoljeet Singh Standby Players: Naman Pushpak, D Deepesh, Vedant Trivedi, Vikalp Tiwari, Alankrith Rapole (WK) Fixtures: June 24: 50-over Warm-Up at Loughborough University The schedule: 1st OD: June 27, Hove; 2nd OD: June 30, Northampton; 3rd OD: July 2, Northampton; 4th OD: July 5, Worcester; 5th OD: July 7, Worcester Tests: 1st Test: 12-15 July, Beckenham; 2nd Test: July 20-23, Chelmsford. Get IPL 2025 match schedules , squads , points table , and live scores for CSK , MI , RCB , KKR , SRH , LSG , DC , GT , PBKS , and RR . Check the latest IPL Orange Cap and Purple Cap standings.
Time of India
29-04-2025
- Sport
- Time of India
India men's Under-19 team to tour England
Ayush Mhatre and Vaibhav Suryavanshi Mumbai: Not just the India men's senior team, the India Under-19 men's team too will be in England this summer, for a full-fledged tour which will include five One-dayers and two 'Tests' against the hosts, TOI has learnt. The tour may offer the likes of 17-year-old Ayush Mhatre (Mumbai & Chennai Super Kings ) and 14-year-old Vaibhav Suryavanshi (Bihar & Rajasthan Royals ), currently playing in the IPL, and several other youngsters, an opportunity to showcase their talent. Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW! Confirming the development, a source in the BCCI told TOI, 'The India Under-19 boys will tour England this summer. The team will reach the UK on June 21.' Incidentally, the Indian women's team (three WODIs and five WT20Is) and the Indian mixed disability teams will be touring England (for a seven-match T20I series) this summer. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Google Brain Co-Founder Andrew Ng, Recommends: Read These 5 Books And Turn Your Life Around Blinkist: Andrew Ng's Reading List Undo The tour will help India's U-19 team prepare for the U-19 World Cup in Zimbabwe & Namibia in Jan next year. The India U-19 team was last in action in Dec last year in the Asia Cup in UAE, when it lost in the final to Bangladesh. Everything is special about Vaibhav Suryavanshi: Vikram Rathour The schedule:1st ODI: June 27, Hove; 2nd ODI: June 30, Northampton; 3rd ODI: July 2, Northampton; 4th ODI: July 5, Worcester; 5th ODI: July 7, Worcester Tests: 1st Test: 12-15 July; 2nd Test: July 20-23, Chelmsford.
