By Admin 
On the basis of the all-round game of young Kanishk Chauhan, India defeated arch-rival Pakistan by 58 runs in the Super Six match of Under-19 World Cup here on Sunday and confirmed its place in the semi-finals.
India will face the challenge of Afghanistan in the semi-finals. England and Australia will face each other in the second semi-final.
Kanishk, apart from playing an inning of 35 runs in 29 balls, took the eighth wicket and made a quick partnership of 50 runs with Khilan Patel (21 runs in 15 balls) due to which the team scored 252 runs in 49.5 overs.
Pakistan had to achieve the target in 33.3 overs to make it to the semi-finals by achieving a better net run rate than India, but the team never showed interest in doing so during its batting. Pakistan had scored 167 runs for four wickets in 33.3 overs and then the entire team was out for 194 runs in 46.2 overs.
In the bowling department, Kanishk put a break on the pace of Pakistan team by taking one wicket for just 30 runs in 10 overs. He bowled 40 dot balls during this period.
While the pitch helped the spinners, left-arm spinner Khilan Patel (3 wickets for 35 runs in 9.2 overs) and captain Ayush Mhatre (3 wickets for 23 runs in 8 overs) also kept the run rate in the middle overs.
Pakistan’s Sameer Minhas, the hero of the Asia Cup, was shown the way to the pavilion by Henil Patel with his off-cutter in the initial overs, after which the team’s batsmen adopted a very defensive attitude.
Mhatre said after the match, “The start was good, but the ball started spinning in the middle overs. KC (Kanishka’s nickname) batted brilliantly. Vedant (Trivedi) had batted well in the nets, so I had confidence in him. The players made a great contribution. Pakistan’s batsmen batted well in the first 25 overs, after that our spinners bowled well. We are focusing on one match at a time. Now we want to win the final.
Before this, Kanishk and Khilan added 50 runs in just 5.1 overs and scored runs quickly at the end of the innings. Earlier, Vedant Trivedi had given a solid foundation to the team by playing a restrained inning of 68 runs in 98 balls.
For Pakistan, Abdul Subhan took three wickets while Mohammad Syam took two wickets due to which the Indian innings was limited to 49.5 overs.
Vaibhav Suryavanshi (30 runs in 22 balls) gave an aggressive start to the Indian team who came to bat first, but despite getting a life against left-arm fast bowler Sayyam, he got out while trying to play a pull shot on the second consecutive ball.
Captain Ayush Mhatre (0)’s bad phase continued in the youth ODI and he was out on zero on the very first ball. Whereas the second opener Aaron George (16) was dismissed by the tall fast bowler Subhan.
Taking advantage of his height, Subhan troubled the batsmen by achieving uncomfortable bounce.
After losing three wickets at the score of 47 runs, Vihaan Malhotra (21) took over the Indian innings by making a partnership of 62 runs for the fourth wicket with Vedant. However, due to the slow pace of the pitch, it was difficult to play shots and none of the top order batsmen including Vedant could increase the run rate.
Right-handed batsman Vedant hit two fours and a six in his 98-ball innings, but was out after playing a bad shot on a full-toss ball from left-arm wrist spinner Momin Qamar.
Khilan and Kanishk batted brilliantly in the last overs and took the team beyond 250 runs. Even in this match, the players of India and Pakistan did not shake hands with each other.