With 6 of the best team from the continent competing against each other, the Asia Cup 2022 is currently underway in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The six teams that are participating in the competition are India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Hong Kong.
While the Asia Cup 2022 is currently the centre stage of cricket world, very few people know that the organizers of the competition, the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) also organises an U19 version of the tournament.
The very last time that the U19 Asia Cup was played was back in the year 2021. That edition of the tournament was won by the Indian U19 team led by the Indian captain Yash Dhull. They later went on to lift the U19 Cricket World as well.
Today in this article, we take a look at 3 players who played in the U19 Asia Cup 2021 and is also playing in the Asia Cup 2022.
Meet Bhavsar
The first player in our list today is Kuwait’s Meet Bhavsar. The 18-years-old youngster was part of the Kuwait U19 team in the U19 Asia Cup 2021 and also represented Kuwait senior national team in the qualifying stages of the Asia Cup 2022. Kuwait missed out on the main stages of the Asia Cup 2022 by a narrow margin. They finished 2nd to Hong Kong in the points table with 2 wins out of 3 matches. The only defeat also came against Hong Kong.
Matheesha Pathirana
The 2nd player in our list is Sri Lanka’s pace bowler Matheesha Pathirana. Nicknamed as Junior Malinga after Sri Lanka’s great pace bowler Lasith Malinga due to a big similarity in bowling action between the two. Pathirana was part of the Sri Lankan U19 team in the U19 Asia Cup 2021 and also played in the U19 World Cup earlier this year. He also featured for the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in the IPL and impressed everyone.
Noor Ahmed
Afghanistan cricket team has had quite the rise up the order in the ICC Ranking and today Afghanistan is among the top teams in Asia. Afghanistan is most popularly known for the quality of spin bowlers that the team boasts of, for example Mohammad Nabi, Rashid Khan and Mujeeb ur Rahman. Now add another name to the list, Noor Ahmed. Noor was part of the Afghanistan team in the U19 Asia Cup 2021 and is also part of the senior team in the Asia Cup 2022.