The Under-19 World Cup has always had a certain charm, of bands of boys unknown even in their cities or states, forget countries, coming together to vie for a global title so early in their lives, as India have just done for the fifth time.
Over the years, egged on by big broadcast eyeballs and bigger marketing budgets chasing them, the tournament has also come to acquire immense hype. For the 2018 edition, the broadcaster ran a campaign titled ‘Greatness Begins Here’. But does greatness really begin at the U-19 level?
Let’s look at the senior careers of the 178 players who have been part of India’s junior World Cup teams, excluding the current edition.
Fifty-one of them have gone on to play for India. Even if we leave out a couple of recent squads to allow for youngsters still finding their way in senior domestic cricket, it still means almost two-thirds of junior India cricketers have not made it to the senior national team.
Even among the 51 who have graduated successfully to seniority, 26 — more than half, have played 25 or fewer white-ball international games (ODIs and T20Is combined).
The picture is starker when it comes to Test cricket. Nearly three-fourths of these 51 double internationals — 37 — have played 25 or fewer Test matches. In fact, 16 haven’t played a single Test.
An overwhelming majority fail to make the transition
The absolute numbers will, of course, inch up as some of the younger U-19 World Cuppers, such as Shubman Gill, will likely become international regulars in future. But every two years, a fresh batch of 15 gets added to the denominator as well, and as the data show, an overwhelming majority fail to make the transition.
If greatness can be determined by the weight of numbers, only eight players — Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Shikhar Dhawan, Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja and Harbhajan Singh — have gone on to play 200-plus white-ball international games.
And a mere four have either achieved or are close to the ultimate 100-Test mark — Sehwag, Harbhajan, Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara. It can safely be concluded that barring the truly exceptional player, greatness does not begin at the U-19 World Cup.
Is junior stardom a marker of at least a stable domestic career?
Again, it turns out that adult life is hard. Of the 127 junior World Cuppers who have not represented India senior, 71 have not managed 50-plus domestic white-ball games. First-class cricket is harder, and 68 are short of breaching even 25 red-ball games.
Just three out of the 127 — Unmukt Chand, Iqbal Abdulla and Shreevats Goswami — have turned out in more than or close to 200 domestic white-ball matches. And just one, Gujarat’s Niraj Patel, has managed to reach three figures in first-class cricket.
For now, as chief junior selector S Sharath said, “These boys will sail in the ocean from the lake.”
Winning 2012 U-19 WC was to be high point of career: Kamal Passi
Let’s look at an interesting story of a U19 World Cup winning bowler Kamal Passi.
A day after India beat Ireland in the Under-19 World Cup on January 19, 2022 the phone of a former India junior cricketer started buzzing. The cricketer was Kamal Passi, part of the champion side of 2012.
When Kamal Passi returned home from his morning practice session at the Goregaon Sports Club in Mumbai, there were at least 50 missed calls and more than 100 WhatsApp messages from unknown numbers asking about his whereabouts.
In the evening, when he returned to his club for training, his fellow cricketers started congratulating him; many of them were perplexed by the fact that Kamal Passi is an U-19 World Cup winner. Confused by the surprise adulation, Passi asked one of his teammates what the fuss was all about.
“He explained to me that they had showed the highlights of my 6/23 against Zimbabwe during the Ireland match, and commentator Alan Wilkins had asked about my whereabouts, what I am doing, and why I have not played enough first-class cricket,” Passi
“When I went through all those messages that night, most of them were from journalists asking for interviews. Few were from my former Punjab and Services teammates. Everyone was asking me only one question, ‘why didn’t you play enough cricket? Why did your career never take off?” shared Passi with a big laugh.
“It has been almost 10 years since we won the U-19 World Cup, and I still don’t know where it went wrong. I didn’t have the answer, so I decided not to reply to any of them.”
Consistently ignored for State team
Passi took 10 wickets in the World Cup — the second-most for India, but has since managed to play only four first-class games and a solitary List A match, for which he holds the Punjab Cricket Association responsible.
Passi said he was consistently ignored for even the Punjab U-23 team, making him switch to Services, for whom he eventually made his first-class debut in November 2015.
“I came back after winning the Cup, and my name was not in the Ranji Trophy camp of 40. Generally, you expect to get an entire season with the senior state team after playing for India U-19.
But forget senior team camp, they didn’t even select me for the CK Nayudu [then U-23, now U-25] camp. From being someone who performed and won the U-19 World Cup, I was not good enough to play for my state’s U-23 side.”
“I still have Cricket left in me”
“To answer all those questions about why my cricket never took off, it is because of my association. I have received step-motherly treatment, and I am still trying to figure out the reason.”
“To Mr Alan Wilkins, sir, I am still an active cricketer. I am still looking to cement my place in the Punjab senior team. I am 29, I still have a few years of cricket left in me, and I am an optimistic person.”
Passi, who works for the GST department in Mumbai, has no complaints from the game. “I have my share of annoyance with the administrators, but not with the sport. Because of cricket, I have got this job in the GST department. If not for this job, I don’t know what I would have done with my life.”
He has one piece of advice for the current U-19 youngsters. “Cricket is not the end of life. The post U-19 phase will be very depressing. Not all of you will play for the India senior side even if you win the U-19 World Cup. Some of your mates will get big IPL contracts, while some you will be toiling to get matches for your senior state team.”
“Reach out to your coaches, friends and families, and never lose hope.”
