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da apostaganha： Cricinfo staff21-Aug-2008When Sachin Tendulkar said recently that there was a lot of youngcricketing talent coming up in the country, he must have, atleast in a corner of his mind, had the India Under-15 team inmind.The teen cricketers, now doing duty for the country in the Lom-bard World Challenge one-day cricket competition in England, haveprogressed to the final after remaining unbeaten in the prelim-inary league and then registering a fine win over the favouredSouth African outfit in the semis.And now – in a reprise of the rivalry between the two nationsthat lights up the senior level of the game – the Indiansawait the Pakistan team in the final of the event, to beplayed at Lord`s later on Tuesday.The brainchild of Peter English, creater of the England SchoolsCricket Association, the Lombard tournament though unoffi-cial, is the first such tournament in internation- al cricket.And the organisers, in concert with sponsors Lombard, have plansto make this a once-in-four-years event, on the lines of thesenior World Cup.On paper, the Pakistan outfit looks the stronger of the two.And its pedigree, in particular, is exceptional – cap- tainingthe side is no less than Faisal Iqbal, nephew of legen- daryPakistan Test star Javed Miandad. The leading batsman in the teamis Bazid Khan, son of former Pakistan Test opener Majid Khan.And the spearhead of the bowling is a leg-spinner with a bouncy,bubbly action and almost unplayable turn, name of Imran Qadir -whose father just happens to be ace Pakis- tan leggie AbdulQadir.Against this the Indian side – which incidentally was pickedon the basis of performances in the domestic inter- schoolstournament for the C K Nayadu tournament – is a solid, profes-sional side with a good grasp of the basics of one day cricket.Starring with bat and ball has been skipper Ritender SinghSodhi, who was the most economical and successful bowler againstSouth Africa before going on to fashion India`s win in thatmatch with a fluent 67.Joining him in the stellar category are the likes of PradeepChawla (62 vs S`Africa) and Mohammad Kaif, whoseonslaught on the bowling in the middle and end overs has been afeature of the Indian display in the tournament. Kaif, who rat-tled up 54 off only 32 balls in the semifinal against S`Africa,has already compiled 166 runs from four in- nings thus farand, given a reasonably good showing in the fi- nal, looks a certto bag the man of the series award.Though the stars have hogged the limelight, the Indian juniorshave, unlike their seniors during the tour of England underAzharuddin earlier this summer, proved to be a team well versedin the fundamentals of the one-day game. They fielded wellthroughout, bringing off the sort of sliding stops their seniorshave never really managed on the field of play, bowled close tothe stumps and with enough swing and seam to trouble all op-posing batsmen, the spinners got turn and the bowlers, in gen-eral, gave away very few no-balls, wides, and other freebies.And much to the surprise of the observers, the cricket has beenof anything but schoolboy variety. As no less than former Englandbowler Paul Allott admitted in a media column this weekend,”All misconceptions that this tournament would be played outbetween naive and immature teams were dispelled after the firstsemifinal between India and South Africa. You could not havewished for a more competi- tive, highly exciting and skilfulgame of cricket…”Add to this obvious skill the needle that inevitably entersinto any sporting encounter between India and Pakistan, at what-ever level, and Tuesday`s final between the two teams couldturn out to be a humdinger…Besides, of course, providing the first real look at the probablestars of the senior World Cup of, say, 2004 AD?
