Under-19 World Cup

Now that the only players in the U19 World Cup to have been snapped up for the third season of the IPL cannot go and win the tournament, can we get back to discussing the U19 World Cup here?

Brilliant stuff from Pak - back to back wins - good ones. Pakistan marches into the final yet another time. Nice to see the boys showing their cool in pressure situations. Go Pakistan!!!

Jonty Rhodes could not do much either with our guys mate

That has a lot to do with improved training conditions back home with lots of private academies offering training and more importantly better grounds. The players of yesteryears did not have such facilities , which is why they are reluctant to dive on the field and are inept at fielding.

Originally posted by kahmad Hammad Raza is looking a fine Allrounder for Pakistan. Hopefully he will improve and make the national team. They are in the finals because they are not dropping the catches. Maybe they could teach it to their star collegues how to field.

Originally posted by Amal Originally posted by kahmad Hammad Raza is looking a fine Allrounder for Pakistan. Hopefully he will improve and make the national team. They are in the finals because they are not dropping the catches. Maybe they could teach it to their star collegues how to field.   Hammad Azam

thanks for correcting me.
I have mixed 2 players in one:-)

Jason Holder looks a really good bowler and how refreshing to see a tall bowler in the Holding/Garner mould, hopefully he can really develop because he has all the attributes to become a very very good bowler in the future.

Yes spin , only few of U-19 make it to Seniors.Its not only with WI , its same with all other countires sam.

Well the final was held yesterday, Pakistan versus Australia. It turned out to be a cracking game with Australia coming home in the end. It was also the first time I saw bowlers from the 'main' teams actually outdoing the batsmen to get them out. Up until now, the majority of dismissals has been batsmen getting themselves out.

Something that surprised me a little was how close all the main teams were in terms of skill. Except for the final, where both teams showed a lot more skill than they had previously, the main teams were so evenly matched it only took something a little bit special to upset the balance and come away with the win. Basically, on any given day anyone of the top teams could have beaten the other.

Obviously most people are disappointing with NZ's 7th place. Ironically, I think a lot of this comes down our dominance in pool play though. In every other group, the top 2 teams had a tough encounter between each other. In our group, we smashed Sri Lanka by 7 wickets, in fact we never lost more than 3 wickets in the pool stage leaving our middle order completely unprepared once it came to the crunch match against Australia in the quater-final, and it really showed.

Lastely, has this WC unearthed any future stars? I don't think so. I can see quite a few of these players making it to the international stage (Braithwaite, Hazlewood etc.) but are they going to score 10,000 test runs or take 400 test wickets (ignoring the fact test cricket is likely to be played less and less), I just can't see it happening.