Taking the cricket world by storm, the Indian U-19 team has been in red-hot form in the ongoing ICC U-19 World Cup in New Zealand. The boys in blue have registered convincing victories in all their three group encounters of the coveted event. The Indian team had defeated - Australia, Papua New Guinea and Zimbabwe in the league stages and have topped their group to qualify for the quarterfinals.
The latest hero of India's dominant run was opener Shubman Gill, who hit an unbeaten 90 to lead his team to a 10-wicket over Zimbabwe on Friday. Gill's innings included 13 boundaries and a huge maximum. During his match-winning knock, he played some exquisite shots but there is one stroke in particular that stood out. In the 14th over of the match, the stylish right-hander smoked Nkosilathi Nungu for a six over mid-wicket with a short-arm jab.
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The shot reminded many of Indian captain Virat Kohli who played the similar kind of stroke in Pune ODI against England last year. For the first time on the 22-yard strip, the Delhi-born batsman executed a breathtaking piece of skill to hit Chris Woakes for a boundary over the rope and deposited it in the stands.
Earlier, left-arm spinner Anukul Sudhakar Roy spearheaded the Indian bowling effort with figures of 4/20 as Zimbabwe were dismissed for 154 runs in 48.1 overs. Electing to bat first on winning the toss, Zimbabwe ran into trouble right at the start when their opener Gregory Dollar was bowled by Indian fast bowler Shivam Mavi in the third over.
The other Zimbabwe opener Wesley Madhevere was then involved in two partnerships with Dion Myers and Milton Shumba. The trio did their best to keep the Indian bowlers at bay but struggled to keep the run rate going.
Apart from Roy, Arshdeep and Abhishek Sharma also bowled well, ending up with a couple of wickets each. During the chase, Harvik Desai and Shubman Gill then put on an unbeaten opening stand of 155 runs to power the Indians to an easy victory.
