South Africa U19 vs India U19, 2nd OD, Review - Yashasvi Jaiswal's all-round heroics help the visitors seal the series

India U19 who are involved in a three-match Youth ODI series won the second match and gained an unassailable lead over South Africa U19 all thanks to an all-round performance from Yashasvi Jaiswal. Right from the start, the stars were in Team India’s favour as the Indian skipper won the toss and put the South Africans in to bat.

And, the story went no different than the previous match, apart from the fact that the South Africans weren’t even able to muster those many runs. The Protean youth could manage to score only 119 runs in the 29.5 overs they stayed on the field, before being bowled out. The top scorer of the previous game, Luke Beaufort couldn’t replicate his performance here and was out for just 12 runs.

The highest scorer of the first innings was Jonathan Bird with 25 runs off 33 balls. Leading the pack of the Indian bowlers was the Man of the Match Yashasvi Jaiswal. Jaiswal, who will be playing for Rajasthan Royals in IPL 2020, took 4 wickets in his 3.5 overs while giving away only 13 runs. Other Indian bowlers who got wickets in their bags were Akash Singh, Atharva Ankolekar and Ravi Bishnoi. Each one of them managed to pick up 2 wickets.

Jaiswal leads the way with the bat for India U19

With such a low total at hand, the South Africa U19 bowlers could’ve only hoped for a miracle to help them to win the match. But, the Indian youth had other plans in mind.

After a couple of initial hiccups that came in the form of the dismissals of Priyam Garg and Shashwat Rawat, there was no looking back. Yashasvi shone with the bat too and played a match-winning knock of 89* off just 56 delivers. Joining him in the hunt of the South African bowlers was Dhruv Jurel who scored a run-a-ball 26 runs. The Indian team managed to get past the target in 16.2 overs to spare and 8 wickets in hand.

With the next match to be played after a day’s gap, i.e. on the 30th December at the same venue, the young Proteas will look to fill all the loopholes and avoid a series whitewash.