U19 World Cup 2024: Aakash Chopra picks five Indian players to watch out for

Hosting JioCinema’s daily sports show ‘#AAKASHVANI’, Aakash Chopra, picked five Indian players to watch out for at the U-19 Men’s World Cup in South Africa.

Excerpts: 

Uday Saharan (Captain and middle-order batsman): Born in Rajasthan, Uday moved to Punjab and has played his cricket there. He has received a lot of support from his father and even the Punjab Cricket Association has invested heavily in him. We’ll see him play at No. 4 and 5. He played well in the tri-series featuring South Africa and Afghanistan recently and scored a century against South Africa. He is a good stroke-maker and is a proper batsman. He has good temperament and shows a lot of patience. 

Raj Limbani (fast bowler): He took 7/13 against Nepal in the U-19 ACC Cup. He swings the ball very well. He tries to hit the pads regularly. Some of the balls straighten and he’s capable of finding the outside edges. It will be interesting to see how he bowls on South African pitches. 

Saumy Pandey (Vice Captain and left-arm spinner): He faced many challenges in childhood. Many people don’t know, he was born prematurely, so it took some time for his body to develop. He fought these circumstances and developed into a left-arm spinner. He has the ability to keep bowling at the same spot. He’s not a huge turner of the ball and varies the pace well. He is an accurate bowler and that should help him get wickets in South Africa. 

Musheer Khan (right-handed batsman and left-arm spinner): Musheer is Sarfaraz Khan’s brother. There are shades of Sarfaraz in him when it comes to scoring heavily. His style of batting is quite interesting. He looks slightly off-balance, looks a bit ungainly but he scores a lot of runs and scores at a good pace. He’s someone who’s actually a game-changer. I feel he’ll grab his opportunities here as he knows well that you don’t get too many opportunities to rise to the top.  

Arshin Kulkarni (right-handed batsman and right-arm pacer): He bats in the top six and is also a pace bowler. He’s a rare commodity in that sense. Everyone I have spoken to has said he’s a good player. He was picked by Lucknow Super Giants for the IPL. Hopefully, we’ll see him do well at the World Cup. He was impressive in the Maharashtra Premier League and was successful with both bat and ball. He scored a 100, took four wickets and also defended six runs in the last over, all in the same match.