As India and Bangladesh square off against each other in the U19 World Cup final on Sunday, 2 of India’s biggest stars during their campaign will be eyeing some major records in the tournament’s 32-year-old history. Yashasvi Jaiswal is currently the leading run-getter in the ongoing World Cup while his teammate and leg-spinner Ravi Bishnoi currently ranks 4th among the list of top wicket-takers in the tournament.
Jaiswal has so far scored 312 runs in the U19 World Cup and stands miles ahead of his closest competitor still left at the tournament. Unless Yashasvi has a really bad game with the bat and New Zealand U19 player RA Mariu (206 runs) hits a hundred during the 3rd place playoff vs Pakistan on Saturday, the Indian opener is certain to walk away with the honour of scoring most runs in this World Cup.
If he does this, Jaiswal will join his seniors Shikhar Dhawan (505 runs in 2004), Cheteshwar Pujara (349 runs in 2006) and Tanmay Srivastava (262 runs in 2008) as the only Indians to have scored the most runs in a single U19 World Cup edition. If Yashasvi scores 38 more runs on Sunday, he will become the 2nd-highest run-scorer from India in a single edition after Dhawan who still holds the records for the most runs scored by anyone ever in World Cup history.
After his 105* in the win vs Pakistan U19 in the semi-final, Jaiswal now also has 4 scores of fifty or more at the U19 World Cup. He now lies just one fifty away from equalling the overall record currently held by Australian Brett Williams (1988) and India’s own Sarfaraz Khan (2016) who both have five 50+ scores each. Hang on, Jaiswal still has one more record in his sights!
