Indian colts show grit; scoop ICC Under-19 World Cup

Kuala Lumpur, Mar 2 (UNI) Indian boys held their nerves to pull off an exciting win as they defeated South Africa by 12 runs in a rain-affected final to lift the ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup here today.

India captain Virat Kohli's boys had a tough task on their hands when they failed to post a competitive total, by their standards, on the board as they were bundled out for a meagre 159 runs in just under 46 overs.

The Indians, however, responded splendidly to reduce South Africa to 17 for three in 8.3 overs when it started raining. After the rain halted, they were set a target of 116 in 25 overs which meant they had to score 99 runs off 98 balls with seven wickets still in hand.

Ajitesh Argal, who was today's Man of the match, bowled with a lot of control as the Proteas found it hard to negotiate his tight line. He returned figures of seven for two wickets off his allotted five overs.

Hendricks and Wayne Parnell managed to keep their team in the match as they added 50 runs for the fifth wicket off 57 balls, but a waist-high full toss from Ravindra Jadeja brought an end to their partnership. Hendricks mishit the delivery to fall for 35 with South Africa still needing 44 off five overs.

In the next over, Iqbal Abdulla reduced South Africa to 75 for 6, leaving it to Parnell and Bradley Barnes to complete the task.

Jadeja and Iqbal kept a close check on the scoring rate giving away 12 runs in the penultimate two overs and claimed two and one wickets respectively.

In the last over of the match, Siddarth Kaul had to defend 19 runs but the right-arm pacer gave just six runs and picked up two wickets as India won the match on a day which also saw the senior team defeating Australians in their own den in a best-of three finals of the ongoing CB series.

Earlier, in the morning, India too found it hard to score as the Proteas' new-ball bowlers utilised the swinging conditions to good effect and provided their batsmen a much easier task to lift the trophy.

For South Africa, Arnold and Wayne Parnell bowled exceptionally well to provide India with early jitters as both of them claimed two wickets each.

Scoreboard: India Under-19 innings: (50 overs maximum) T Kohli c Malan b Parnell 1 S Goswami c Hendricks b Arnold 6 T Srivastava c Engelbrecht b Adams 46 V Kohli c Engelbrecht b Malan 19 S Tiwary run out 20 M Pandey c Barnes b Arnold 20 R Jadeja c Vandiar b Vallie 11 Iqbal Abdulla run out 9 P Sangwan c Barnes b Adams 13 S Kaul not out 1 A Argal c Barnes b Parnell 1 Extras (lb 2, w 10) 12 Total (in 45.4 overs) 159 all out Fall of wickets: 1-3, 2-27, 3-74, 4-83, 5-120, 6-122, 7-137, 8-150, 9-158, 10-159 Bowling: W Parnell 7.4-2-21-2, M Arnold 10-0-30-2, P Malan 9-1-23-1, R Adams 8-0-38-2, M Vallie 9-0-33-1, S Engelbrecht 2-0-12-0 South Africa Under-19 innings: (target: 116 runs from 25 overs) P Malan c Goswami b Argal 2 J Smuts run out 5 R Rossouw c Jadeja b Argal 0 R Hendricks c Goswami b Jadeja 35 J Vandiar c Goswami b Jadeja 3 W Parnell c Pandey b Kaul 29 R Adams lbw b Iqbal Abdulla 1 B Barnes b Kaul 19 M Arnold not out 1 Extras (lb 5, w 3) 8 Total (in 25 overs) 103 for 8 Fall of wickets: 1-5, 2-6, 3-11, 4-22, 5-72, 6-75, 7-102, 8-103 Bowling: P Sangwan 5-2-14-0, A Argal 5-2-7-2, R Jadeja 5-0-25-2, S Kaul 5-0-26-2, Iqbal Abdulla 5-0-26-1 UNI XC RAR AB RAI2345