Vaibhav Suryavanshi's magical 175 in final powers India to 6th ICC U19 World Cup title; beat England by 100 runs

Riding on Vaibhav Suryavanshi's magical 175 in final, India defeated England by 100 runs in the summit clash to lift the ICC U19 World Cup title for te sixth time on Friday in Harare. Batting first, India posted a mammoth 411/9 in 50 overs - first time a score of 350 was scored in a final of an ICC World Cup at the youth level.

Chasing 412, England looked to chase down the total when Ben Mayes and Ben Dawkins (66) with a 74-run stand for the second wicket. But India turned the game on its head with four wickets for just three runs. Caleb Falconer tried his best with a knock of 115 towards the end but lack support as England lost the game by a century of runs.

Suryavanshi's knock is the record for the best individual score in a U-19 World Cup final. The opener exploded when it mattered the most, reaching his fifty in just 32 balls and continued in the same vein to torment the English bowlers. His second fifty came off just 23 balls.

As many as 150 off his 175 runs came off boundaries thanks to his 15 sixes and as many fours during a knock in which he literally toyed with the opposition attack and turned the Harare Sports Club into his playground.

Records galore for Vaibhav Suryavanshi

He now holds the record for most sixes in a Youth ODI innings, surpassing his own 14 maximums against UAE at ICCA Dubai in December. Suryavanshi now also has the fastest 150 (off 71 balls) in U-19 cricket, bettering the 98 balls taken by England's Ben Mayes against Scotland at the same venue earlier in the competition.

To put things into perspective, Vedant Trivedi saw Suryavanshi celebrate both his 100 and 150 while facing only four balls between the two landmarks. Such was Suryavanshi's onslaught that India's run rate was around 10 and the projected total was 500 at that stage of the game.

However, the boy from Bihar's Samastipur, after leaving the cricket world awestruck in little less than two hours, got out in the 26th over while trying to scoop Manny Lumsden, only to get his glove for wicketkeeper Thomas Rew to complete a catch down the leg side.

Youngest centurion in U19 World Cup

Suryavanshi put on 142 runs in just 19 overs with his skipper Ayush Mhatre, who departed following a 51-ball 53 immediately after bringing up his half-century. By clearing the ropes repeatedly, Suryavanshi aggregated a staggering 22 sixes in this edition alone, leapfrogging South Africa's Dewald Brevis, whose record of 18 sixes had stood since 2022.

Suryavanshi has also become the youngest centurion in the history of the tournament. He was severe on all the English bowlers, and among the worst sufferers were left-arm spinner Ralphie Albert and off-spinner Farhad Ahmed, who were clobbered for 27 and 22 runs respectively.

After Suryavanshi's dismissal, Abhigyan Kundu (40 off 31 balls), Vedant Trivendi (32 off 36), Vihaan Malhotra (30 off 36) and Kanishk Chouhan (37 off 20) chipped in with useful contributions, and even though England did manage to pull things back a bit, they were not allowed to dictate.

With PTI inputs