The sheer enthusiasm for cricket in this country cannot be denied. Everyone from children to senior citizens is strictly glued to their screens when India is playing a match. These days T20 is the new fad and IPL has taken over the town. Young and bustling talents are coming through the ranks and making an instant impact at the country and franchise levels.
Over the years, the ICC U-19 World Cup has become a hotly watched event to see the supply lines for senior-level Indian cricketers. Today players like Gill, Pant, Washington Sundar have all come from the U-19 system. Historically, players like Kohli, Jaddu, Dhawan, and Sharma have all come through this route. Today these players have gone on land huge IPL contracts and some are leading their franchises. They are successful international and IPL players.
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However, every talented U-19 player has not made it big in IPL after landing IPL contracts. We look at 6 players who everyone believed would light up IPL but they failed to deliver on the expectations.
1. Unmukt Chand
Captain of the 2012 U-19 World Cup-winning squad, Chand made a blockbuster entry on the big stage. He scored a hundred in the finals and played a captain’s knock all throughout the tournament. On the back of his spectacular performance, he was picked up by Delhi in 2013. He has since played for Rajasthan and Mumbai too and across 6 seasons he could manage just 300 runs at a meager average of 15 in 20 innings. Since 2017, he has not been picked by any of the franchises in IPL and has now moved to the US to play cricket there.
2. Vijay Zol
Zol was part of the 2012 edition and captained the team in the 2014 season. Coming into international cricket, he had come with a reputation of scoring heavily in first-class cricket. He was picked by RCB in 2012 but considering the huge names that headlined the franchise, he was benched for two consecutive seasons. He played 3 games in 2014 but could score just 29 runs. His IPL never took off in the real sense and he is not regular in any franchise of the tournament.
3. Baba Aprajith
He was one of the biggest stars of the 2012 winning campaigns. He scored 171 runs and picked 5 wickets in 6 games in the tournament. He also won Man of the Match in Quarters as well as Semis. He was picked by CSK and was part of the set-up from 2012 to 2015 and then moved to rise Pune Supergiants in 2016-1. However, in all these years he never got a chance to take the field and is yet to make his debut.
4. Sarfaraz Khan
Khan played the U19 World Cup in 2014 and 2016. he had two brilliant tournaments. He scored 211 runs at an average of 70 in the 2014 edition and in 2016 he ended up as the second-highest run-scorer with 355 runs. He was picked by RCB in 2015 on the back of his impressive World Cup tournament. In 2015, he played a blistering inning against Rajasthan where he got 21 balls 45. However, post-2018 he had no season of any impact, and his form kept dipping. He was released in 2019 and picked by Punjab but has found it difficult to get a game.
5. Pradeep Sangwan
Sangwan wowed the crowds with a 5 wicket haul in the 2008 World Cup campaign against South Africa. Pradeep Sangwan became the first player to be picked in the u-19 players draft, ahead of Virat Kohli during the inaugural IPL auction in 2008 when he was bought by Delhi Daredevils. However, the pacer’s career kept going downhill with testing positive for doping and serving a ban. He also played for Mumbai Indians and Gujarat Lions in IPL but failed to impress in the limited opportunities he received.
6. Smit Patel
Patel played an instrumental role with Chand in the 2012 World Cup campaign to lead them to glory. In the finals, he scored an unbeaten 62. Critics were impressed by his performance. However, quite to his dismay, he could never land with an IPL contract. From the 2012 squad, only CHand and Sandeep Sharma got IPL contracts. He was hurt by the fact that no franchise showed interest in him after such performances.
