In the first instalment of his new weekly column, Wisden India’s editor-in-chief Dileep Premachandran takes a look at the sporting scene in India, with a heavy focus on the country’s No 1 sport, cricket.
On Sunday, the majority of the 22 young men that take to the field at the Sher-e-Bangla Stadium in Mirpur will play the game of their lives, the final of cricket’s Under 19 World Cup.
For most of them, it will never get better than this. At this point in time, with the whiff of glory in the nostrils, few will be thinking too much of the road ahead.
But the reality is that most of them will never bridge the yawning chasm that separates talented young hopefuls and wizened old pros.
India’s U19s have rampaged through the draw, not dropping a game, while West Indies have got there the hard way.
Having lost to England in the group stages, they have since eliminated two Asian powerhouses, Pakistan and Bangladesh, to reach the final.
Shimron Hetmyer, the captain, has scored runs when it has mattered, and they approached tricky run chases in both the quarter-final and the semi with a clarity of thought and refreshing positivity that harked back to the golden years of cricket in the Caribbean.
India, though, are overwhelming favourites. Rishabh Pant, the latest prodigy from the Tarak Sinha coaching school in Delhi, went for 19 million Rupees (Dh1 million) in the Indian Premier League auction last weekend, to his hometown franchise, the Delhi Daredevils.
Ishan Kishan, his captain, had to settle for 3.5 million from Gujarat Lions, one of the two new franchises.
Sarfaraz Khan, whose bludgeoning skills have been central to the Indian campaign, already has an IPL deal with Royal Challengers Bangalore, while Armaan Jaffer, Mahipal Lomror and Khaleel Ahmed all found buyers at a base price of one million.
Read more: Watson, Yuvraj and uncapped Negi cash in among top bids at 2016 IPL auction
But you only have to look at the class of 2008 to see that the giddy anticipation of the last few weeks need not necessarily translate into a thriving senior career.
Virat Kohli, who led India to the U19 title that year, is a bonafide superstar, probably the leading all-format batsman in the world alongside Kane Williamson.
Ravindra Jadeja is the go-to spin option in all three forms of the game. Manish Pandey recently made his first international hundred in Australia.
For the rest, it has been a tale of frustration and missed opportunities. Sreevats Goswami was the ebullient wicketkeeper and opening batsman in that side.
He remains well down the pecking order when it comes to national selection. Pradeep Sangwan, once a left-arm pace bowler of such promise, is on redemption road after serving a drug ban.
Ajitesh Argal, who was man of the match in the 2008 final, has not even played a List A game in six years.
It will help this group of boys that their coach is Rahul Dravid, who in addition to being one of the game’s legends is also one of its better thinkers.
In addition to honing techniques and mental skills, Dravid would have taught them plenty about life skills and the perspective needed to survive in the dog-eat-dog world of professional sport.
The last time our paths crossed, we spoke of Arjun Raja, one of the stars of the Karnataka Ranji Trophy side that he broke into in the early 1990s.
When Dravid scored his first century at Eden Gardens, Raja was at the other end, compiling a mammoth 267, then the highest individual score by a batsman from the state.
A little over a year later, still short of his 24th birthday, his career was over.
He went to work in the Middle East, while Vinod Kambli slotted into the left-hander’s slot in the Indian middle order. As for Dravid, he bided his time in domestic cricket before getting his first India cap in 1996.
Dravid is loathe to criticise anyone, especially a senior and friend like Raja, so when I asked him what was the difference between him and players like that, he ventured hesitantly: “Maybe they didn’t want it as badly.”
Time will tell which of these U19s have their coach’s desire.
Core strength a concern for India’s ODI side
After the big batting blip in Pune, India’s batsmen pulverised Sri Lanka in Ranchi in the second Twenty20 on Friday.
Shikhar Dhawan set the tone with a punishing 51, and there were handy contributions from Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, Suresh Raina and Hardik Pandya. Of those innings, Pandya’s 12-ball 27 would have been of greatest interest to the team management.
Kohli’s form in T20 internationals has been incredible, with an average of 89.71 and a strike-rate of 142.72 over the past two years.
Rohit has also thrived in the format, while Raina has maintained a healthy strike-rate despite not scoring a half-century.
Dhawan averages 19 in 11 innings in that period, and the lack of middle-order oomph has cost India several matches.
Yuvraj Singh has barely had a bat since being recalled, and MS Dhoni’s ability to close out games is not what it once was.
Irfan Pathan faded away after his man-of-the-match heroics in the World T20 final of 2007, and the years since have seen Indian cricket struggle to find a seam-bowling all-rounder.
Pandya is not in the Pathan class with either bat or ball, but he can muscle the ball a long way as he showed in the Indian Premier League last season.
The inclusion of Yuvraj and Pandya gives India plenty of bowling options, especially in home conditions.
But for a team that has most other bases covered, it is the middle-order batting – core strength to use the gym analogy – that remains a matter of concern.
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