There is only some time left for the Under-19 World Cup 2026 to start. The 16-team tournament will start in Zimbabwe and Kenya from January 15. India, which has won this tournament maximum 5 times, is expected to win the title once again. One reason for this is the strong Team India and the second biggest reason is Vaibhav Suryavanshi. When Vaibhav's bat swings, victory seems certain. But what will happen to the team if this 14 year old opener does not perform? Team India also got this reality check just before the World Cup, when it had to face defeat at the hands of England in the warm-up match.
Before the start of the World Cup, each team played 2-2 warm-up matches. Team India, captained by Ayush Mhatre, had easily defeated Zimbabwe in its first practice match. Young opener Vaibhav Suryavanshi played a big role in this, who played an explosive inning of 95 runs. But on Monday, January 12, when Team India played in the second practice match against title contenders England, it had to face defeat. An important reason for this was Vaibhav not walking.
In this match, Team India batted first and this time captain Mhatre played a strong innings. But even before he could score runs, the team got its biggest blow when Vaibhav was out in the third over itself. This time he faced 4 balls and got out after scoring only 1 run. Vedant Trivedi and vice-captain Vihaan Malhotra also did not last long, while captain Mhatre scored runs quickly but was out one run before the half-century. The team had lost 4 wickets for only 79 runs. However, Abhigyan Kundu and RS Ambareesh managed the innings with a partnership of 96 runs.
Abhigyan (82) scored an excellent half-century but missed a century. Whereas Ambareesh was out after scoring 48 runs. In the end, spin-allrounder Kanishk Chauhan played a quick inning of 45 runs and took the team to a strong score of 295 runs at the loss of 8 wickets. The surprising thing was that England captain Thomas Reu used 10 bowlers. Only one player did not bowl and he himself was the captain because he was also the wicketkeeper. But all the magic was done by James Minto, who took 5 wickets in 8 overs.
After this, the responsibility was on the bowlers and Henil Patel gave a good start to the team by taking the first wicket in the second over of the innings. But after this the English batsmen made strong partnerships. There was a partnership of 78 runs for the second wicket between Joseph Moores (46) and Ben Mayes (34). After this, captain Thomas Ryu and Caleb Falconer (29 not out) together added 92 runs. England had scored 196 runs after losing only 3 wickets and Ryu (71 not out) was moving towards his century. Then the rain spoiled the fun of the match. After this the match did not start again and England Under-19 won the match by a margin of 20 runs (DLS).
