Indian captain Yash Dhull rose to the occasion and smashed an excellent century to become the difference between India and Australia on Wednesday, 2 February in the U19 World Cup.
Dhull along with Shaikh Rashid put on a 204 run partnership after India lost early wickets and helped India achieve a huge target against a good Australian bowling attack. In a masterclass in pacing the innings, the two batsmen started very slow and gradually went on to berserk mode in the final 10 overs of the game.
The last 60 balls yielded over 100 runs where Dhull and Rahsheed took on the attack to the opposition. While Rashid (94 off 108) missed out on a well deserved century, Dhull went on to make 110 off 110 balls.
It was always going to be difficult for Australia to chase this down against an in-form bowling attack of India and the story was along similar lines. They lost a flurry of wickets between the 16th and 30th over and lost the game by a huge margin of 96 runs. Spinner Vicky Ostwal was the pick among the bowlers, taking three wickets to his name. Nishant Sinhu and Ravi Kumar got two each while Kaushal Tambe and Angkrish Raghuvanshi had a piece to their name.
India will meet England in the final of the U19 World Cup. The match is scheduled for February 5, 6:30 PM IST.