The Indian cricket team in one of the most successful and strongest team in the world of cricket. The Men in Blues have greatly talented players all around the squad, whether it’s an experienced players like Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma or youngsters like Shubman Gill.
The Indian cricket team’s secret to success is their focus on youth. Team India is the most successful team in the history of the U19 World Cup, having won it a total of 5 times.
The Indian team have discovered some greatly talented players through their U19 network and those players have slowly gone on to play for the senior national team. Today in this article, we take a look at Indian players who have won the Player of the Tournament award in U19 World Cup and how their senior India career turned out to be.
Yuvraj Singh
Yuvraj Singh played the Under-19 World Cup in the year 2000. Yuvraj made important contributions with both bat and ball in that World Cup, due to which he was awarded the ‘Player of the Tournament’ award.
Yuvraj scored 203 runs in 8 matches at an average of 33.8. He scored runs for India in difficult conditions. He took 12 wickets with the ball at an excellent average of 11.50. His best performance with the ball in hand was 4 wickets for 15 runs.
He had a outstanding career for India where he won the ICC T20 World Cup in 2007 and the 50 overs World Cup in the year 2011. He is regarded as one of the best all-rounder to have played for India.
Shikhar Dhawan
Shikhar Dhawan was the highest run-scorer in the Under-19 World Cup 2004. He scored 505 runs in 7 innings, in which his average was more than 80. He was awarded the ‘Player of the Tournament’ award for this outstanding performance.
Even after Dhawan’s excellent performance, he did not get a chance to play for India. He had to wait for a very long time for his debut. Suresh Raina, Dinesh Karthik, Robin Uthappa, who had played the Under-19 World Cup with him, got a chance to play for India ahead of him.
But after he got his chance, he took it with both hands and played in all formats for India. He is considered one of the best opener to have played for India and his partnership with Rohit Sharma was very special. But he is now very irregular in the Indian team
Cheteshwar Pujara
Cheteshwar Pujara batted very well in the 2006 Under-19 World Cup. He scored 349 runs in 6 matches for India at an excellent average of 116.33. He was awarded the ‘Player of the Tournament’ for his brilliant performance.
Pujara made his India debut in the year 2010 and he is considered one of the most talented batsman in the red ball format. He has scored 7014 runs in 98 Test matches for India as of writing this. However he couldn’t replicate his Test cricket form in other formats for India and played only 5 ODIs for India.
Shubman Gill
Shubman Gill was the second highest run-scorer in the Under-19 World Cup in 2018. The young batsman scored 372 runs in the 6 matches he played in the competition. His batting average was 124 and strike rate was 112.
The Indian Under-19 team won the World Cup for the fourth time and Gill was awarded the ‘Player of the Tournament’ award. And at the age of just 23 years of age, Shubman Gill now looks set for a huge career with the Indian team. He is already considered a huge asset for India and is touted as the long term replacement for Virat Kohli.
Yashasvi Jaiswal
Left-hand batsman Yashasvi Jaiswal is the latest player to have won the Player of the Tournament award after he scored a brilliant 400 runs in the tournament for the Indian team while opening the inning. However, the Indian team lost the U19 World Cup 2020 final to Bangladesh.
Jaiswal is currently building his career in the Indian domestic scenes where he is currently playing for the Mumbai state team. He was picked by the Rajasthan Royals in the IPL 2020 Auction and is still a member of the team, but is yet to show his talent from the U19 World Cup.