India are looking to defend the U19 World Cup for the first time as they face Australia in the final of the tournament at Willowmoore Park, Benoni. Uday Saharan's boys were asked to chase a record 254 in the second innings in the showdown clash. The Indian batting has dominated the oppositions like anything in the tournament so far, but they have registered an undesired record for the first time in 36 years.
For the first time in the 36-year-old history of the U19 World Cup, an Indian opening pair has failed to post a 50-run opening stand in a single edition of the World Cup. For the defending champions, Adarsh Singh and Arshin Kulkarni opened the innings in all the matches. In the final against Australia, the Indian team lost its first wicket for just 3 when Callum Vidler got Arshin with a brilliant outswinger in the third over of the chase. The all-rounder fell for 3 to deny India a strong start to the run-chase.
Notably, both the batters have had some individual success. Before the final, Adarsh had two knocks of over 50 with 76 against Bangladesh in the first match being his highest. Arshin has a century in the tournament when he made 108 against the USA in a Group A match but not much apart from it. Despite the two making a few notable contributions, they never got going together to provide the best of the starts the team would have wanted.
Ahead of the final, the top three highest-run scorers in the tournament were all Indians - Uday Saharan, Musheer Khan and Sachin Das but the openers were not in the top 10. The fact that they have dominated everyone in the tournament with the bat goes down majorly to these three making big scores.
In the semifinal against South Africa, the top order collapsed, making it a daunting task for the middle order to chase 245. Uday Saharan and Sachin Dhas' 5th wicket stand of 171 played a major part in getting India over the line at the end.
