Under -19 cricket world cup, a tournament or a platform (which never failed to excite the inner criket fan in me) which helps us to identify talented youngsters who can show their qualities on the bigger stage of cricket and also it gives these youngsters a chance to face opposition from different parts of the world and gives them opportunity to understand how the world of international cricket works and progresses ahead, over the years we've got some brilliant cricketers who first emerged in this grand tournament and they continued to perform well and eventually they joined their respective national team and played alongside senior cricketer who they've idolized.
History of Under-19 cricket World cup
In the year 1988, the first tournament was organised as 'McDonald's Bicentennial Youth World Cup' it was held as part of the Australian Bicentenary celebrations, the matches were mostly played at South Australia and Victoria, seven test playing nations and ICC associate XI participated in the inaugural tournament which was played in a round robin format.
Australia, the host country won the whole tournament and only lost one match against Pakistan in their final round-robin game, Aussies met Pakistan again in the tournament final and this time they defeated Paksitan by 5 wickets via an unbeaten hundred by Brett Williams.
Notable cricketers who played in this tournament and also for their respective countries :-
England:- Mike Atherton & Naseer Hussain
New Zealand:- Chris Cairns
India :- Venkatapathy Raju
Pakistan:- Mushtaq Ahmed, Inzamam-ul-Haq
West Indies:- Ridley Jacobs, Brian Lara, Jimmy Adams
Sri Lanka :- Sanath Jayasuriya
The much needed revival of the tournament in 1998
Kudos to ICC, to bring back the tournament to felicitate and rush in young blood in the sports also to test young flesh in the pressure cooker situations as in international cricket matches, after 10 years of the inaugural tournament the tournament was back to provide young talents to showcase their skill on the grandest stage of junior cricket.
The tournament was held in South Africa with 9 test playing nation, there were teams from Bangladesh, Kenya, Scotland, Ireland, Denmark, Namibia and Papua New Guinea. England were the unexpected winners of the tournament, they've defeated New Zealand in the finals of the tournament, it was first time England won an ICC tournament.
Notable cricketers :-
West Indies :- Chris Gayle, Ramnaresh Sarwan
Year : 2000
The next tournament was held at Srilanka, participating nations included the nine Test-playing nations, as well as Bangladesh, Kenya, Ireland, Namibia, Holland, Nepal and a combined team from the Americas development region.
India dominated the tournament, were undefeated through out the tournament and in the finals they faced the host nation and defeated them by 6 wickets, this was coincidentally the first time that both Sri Lanka and India made into the finals of the tournament.
This was also the first major championship that India won after the 1983 world cup victory under the captaincy of Mohammad Kaif , this was India's first of five U-19 cricket world cup victory.
Notable Players:
India :- Mohammad Kaif, Yuvraj Singh, Ajay Ratra, Reetinder Singh Sodhi, Venugopal Rao
South Africa :- Greame Smith
Year : 2002
The tournament (held in New Zealand) started with a bang when Australia score 480 runs in their first match against Kenya in their stipulated 50 overs and then bowled out Kenya for just 50 runs and won the match by a thumping 430 runs victory, they continued their dominance throughout the tournament.
A total of 16 sides participated in this tournament, throughout the tournament Australia showcased their dominance over their opponents which their senior team was able to do it quite easily in the senior level.
India, the winner of the previous tournament lost to Proteas in the semifinals and South Africa's junior did the unthinkable by going into the finals of a tournament which somehow their senior team was unable to achieve.
Unfortunately, South Africa lost to Australia, in a final which was completely dominated by Aussies and they won the match by 7 wickets.
Notable Players:-
Australia - Cameron White, George Bailey, Shaun Marsh
India - Suresh Raina, Parthiv Patel, Irfan Pathan
England- Tim Bresnan, Samit Patel
Bangladesh- Mohammed Ashraful, Mashrafe Mortaza
New Zealand- Ross Taylor, Jesse Ryder
Pakistan- Salman Butt, Azhar Ali, Umar Gul
South Africa- Hashim Amla, Ryan Mclaren
Srilanka - Upul Tharanga, Ferveez Maharoof
West Indies - Dwayne Bravo, Ravi Rampaul, Darren Bravo
Year : 2004
The tournament was played at Bangladesh, 16 teams participated in the tournament including Uganda, which was debuting in the tournament.the major shock of the tournament was Australia (who were the winners in the previous tournament) stunning defeat against Zimbabwe, they were bowled out for just 73, shocking right, but that's what we love about sports, the uncertainity.
Pakistan defeated West Indies in a closely fought final match when they defeated windies by 25 runs and this was Pakistan's second major championship victory in international cricket after the 1992 world cup victory of the senior team.
In this tournament, the best batsman for ICC tournament in the recent years was featured for the first time just like in his later years Shikhar Dhawan was the highest scorer of the tournament, in the later years, especially after joining Indian team he proved himself again and again in ICC tournaments, he seems to relish the pressure of performing his best in the ICC tournaments.
Notable cricketers
India :- Ambati Raidu, Suresh Raina, Shikhar Dhawan,Robin Uthappa
West Indies- Denesh Ramdin, Ravi Rampaul
England- Alistair Cook, Tim Bresnan
Ireland- Eoin Morgan
Year : 2006
The tournament was held in sub- continent again, this time in Sri lanka, 16 teams participated in the tournament, the tournament finale was contested between India and Pakistan,notably the biggest and challenging match on the papers was rightly contested between the arch-rivals.
In the final match,when Pakistan were bowled out for just 109 runs everyone thought that India is on course for another U-19 world cup, however Pakistan bowlers brought their team back into the match by bowling their opposition just for 71 runs and won the tournament by 38 runs.
With this victory, Pakistan became the first and so far the only team to win back to back World cup tournament.
Notable cricketers :-
India- Piyush Chawla, Cheteshwar Pujara, Rohit Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja, Ishant Sharma
Paksian- Sarfaraz Ahmad, Imad Wasim, Anwar Ali
Bangladesh- – Mushfiqur Rahim, Shakib Al Hasan, Tamim Iqbal
Australia- Moises Henriques, Aaron Finch, Usman Khawaja, Matthew Wade, David Warner
England- Moeen Ali
Ireland- Eoin Morgan
New zealand- Martin Guptill, Tim Southee, Colin Munro
Srilanka- Angelo Matthews, Thisara Perera
West Indies- Kemar Roach, Sunil Narine, Kieron Pollard
Year :2008
This was the first time the U-19 Cricket World cup was played in associate member country, Malaysia, 16 teams participated in the tournament including the host after suffering a heart breaking loss in the previous tournament finals Indian team was looking to get the championship back.
Pakistan, who were the holders of the championship, were defeated by South Africa in the semi finals and India defeated Kiwis on the road to the finals.
In a match which was interrupted by rain, Indian team defeated South Africa by 12 runs (Via D/L method) and a pumped up India's U-19 Captain Virat Kohli lift the U-19 World Cup trophy with his overjoyed team-mates.
Notable Cricketers :-
India :- Virat Kohli,
New Zealand- Tim Southee, Corey Anderson, Trent Boult, Kane Williamson
South Africa- Riley Rossouw,Wayne Parnell
West Indies - Darren Bravo
Australia- Steve Smith, Philip Hughes, James Pattinson
England- Steven Finn
Year : 2010
The tournament was held in New Zealand, the tournament was supposed to be hosted by Kenya, but upon inspection it was concluded that Kenya isn't ready to host the tournament by the scheduled time and ICC took a big decision (it can be also seen as a controversial decision) of shifting the tournament in New Zealand, the irony was that Kenya, who can automatically qualify to participate in the tournament as they were the host were not even able to participate in the tournament as they were unable to win the African qualifying event.
The tournament was ultimately won by the Australian team who defeated Pakistan by 25 runs in the tournament finals, Previous tournament winners India were defeated by Pakistan in the quarter finals of the tournament in a low scoring thriller match by just 2 runs.
Notable cricketers:-
India - Jaydev Unadkat, Mayank Agarwal
England- James Vince, Ben Stoke, Jos Buttler
South Africa -Dominic Hendricks
New Zealand - Jimmy Neesham, Corey Anderson
Pakistan- Babar Azam, Ahmed Shehzad
West Indies - K Braithwaite, Jason Holder, Shane Dowrich
Australia- Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Marsh
Year : 2012
The tournament was held at Australia for the second time after previously hosting it in 1988 with the tournament being held across three cities (Brisbane, Sunshine Coast and Townsville), overall 16 teams participated in the tournament.India won the tournament despite losing to the West Indies at the very first match they've played in the tournament, keeping their fierce rivalry alive India defeated Pakistan by 1 wicket in quarter finals in another low scoring thriller, India won quite a close games throughout tournament, but the finals proved to be different.
Host and previous tournament winners Australia (who were still undefeated in the tournament till the final) faced India in the finals of the tournament and scored 225/8 in their stipulated 50 overs, Indian team had a shaky start when at the end of 20 overs they were 86/3, however captain Unmukt Chand scored a unbeaten century 111 of 130 balls and scripted an historic victory in the finals, India defeated Australia by 6 wickets.
With this victory India won the tournament for the third time (2000 and 2008) and tied up with Australia (1988, 2002, 2010)
Year : 2014
The tournament was held at United Arab Emirates, this was the first time that an ICC event that was hosted in UAE, Afghanistan was the only non-full member to qualify for the Quarter Finals. This was the first time that Afghanistan reached the last eight of this tournament.Winners of the previous tournament India were defeated in the quarter finals by the England team, which was the first semi-final berth for England in the last four editions, England were defeated by Pakistan in the semi -finals with the victory Pakistan reach its fifth Under-19 Final, becoming the first team to do so.
Notable cricketers :-
India - Deepak Hooda, Sanju Samson, Kuldeep Yadav
South Africa- Kagiso Rabada, Aiden Markram
Pakistan - Imam-ul-haq
Bangladesh- Mustafizur Rahman
New Zealand- Kyle Jamieson
West Indies - Nicholas Pooran, FabianAllen
Year: 2018
Year : 2016
The tournament was held at Bangladesh, which was also the second time that Bangladesh hosted the tournament, Australia announced that they will not be able to partiipate in the tournament due to security reasons.
Defending champions South Africa were knocked out of tournament in the group stage itself with back-to-back defeats to host Bangladesh and Namibia.
Surprising everyone West Indies defeated India by 5 wickets in the finals to win the U-19 world cup for the very first time.
Notable Cricketers: -
Bangladesh - Mehdi Hasan
England - Daniel Lawrence, Sam Curran
West Indues - Keemo Paul, Alzarri Joseph
New Zealand - Glenn Philips
India - Rishabh Pant
Afghanistan - Rashid Khan
Year: 2018
The tournament was held at New Zealand, this was the third time New Zealand hosted the tournament in their country, New Zealand was the first country to host this event for the third time 16 countries participated in the tournament.
West indies, who were the champions of the previous tournament, lost two matches in the group stage and due to that they were knocked out of the tournament quiet early.
Australia defeated Afghanistan in the super league semi finals and India defeated Pakistan in the 2nd semifinal match, both the teams (Australia and India) have already won the tournament thrice, so it was an opportunity for both of the teams to make history by winning the finals and winning the trophy for the fourth time (most by any team in the history of the tournament).
Ultimately it was the Indian team who defeated Aussies in a final which was completely dominated by Indians, as they've defeated their opposition by 8 wickets.
Notable cricketers:-
India- Prithvi Shaw, Shubhman Gill
New Zealand - Rachin Ravindra
Pakistan - Shaheen Afridi
Year: 2020
Just like the previous tournament India met Pakistan in the semi finals of the tournament and India yet again prevailed over their opposition, in the other semifinal of the tournament Bangladesh defeated New zealand by 6 wickets.
In the finals Bangladesh defeated India by 3 wickets (via D/L method) in a rain affected , low scoring thriller match, batting first Indian team were bowled out for 177, Bangladesh has a good start but Ravi Bishnoi's brilliant spell brought India back into the match, but Bangladesh kept their cool and ultimately won the tournament , this was also Bangladesh's first win in an ICC event at any level.
Year 2022:
This year the tournament was held in West indies and this was the first time that the tournament was held in the Caribbean, England went into the finals of the tournament after almost 24 years (1998 was the first England played and won the finals of the tournament ) after they defeated Afghanistan by 1 runs in the semis of the tournament, India defeated Australia by 96 runs in the other semifinals and progres to their fourth consecutive Under-19 Cricket World Cup final.
India defeated England in the finals of the tournament by 4 wickets and won the tournament for the fifth time.
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