T20 World Cup 2024: India’s U19 World Cup Winning Captain Set To Play For USA Vs Men In Blue On June 5
Team India will kickoff their World Cup campaign on June 5 vs USA in the T20 World Cup 2024 and there is a big likelihood that they will find three players in the opposition XI who have previously represented India at the Under19 level. in fact, they did not just represented the Indian team, they won the World Cup in 2012 by beating Australia in the final. The man of the match of that final and also the captain of that Indian team Unmukt Chand is one of three players who is likely to play against India at the World Cup.
Unmukt had shifted base to India after retiring from all forms of cricket in India. He started playing in USA where he currently still resides. In March, Unmukt will become eligible to play for USA. The U19 World Cup winning captain from Delhi was hailed as the next Virat Kohli from Delhi once. But poor show in IPL, domestic cricket and injuries meant that he never got a chance to play for India.
Unmukt later decided to try his luck in franchise cricket and after a few matches in Australia’s Big Bash League (BBL), he went to USA to continue playing cricket at a higher level. Before making the move outside India, Unmukt had also become the captain of Uttarakhand team but after a few losses, he was removed as the captain.
Unmukt is only 30 years old and is looking to do well vs country of birth India in the T20 World Cup. But he says he has no bad blood. “Something which would be very strange, but I think since I’ve retired from India, my next goal was always to sort of play against India, and not in any bad blood but keen to test myself out against the best team in the world,” Chand said in an interview to Cricbuzz.
Two other India U19 World Cup winners from same batch will play for India. They are Harmeet Singh and Smit Patel. Patel has, in fact, captained India A teams which included the likes of Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami and Suryakumar Yadav.
“Have spent a lot of time with Jassi (Bumrah) over the years. Still remember the day he rocked up to practice for the first and he left us awestruck with what we were witnessing (laughs)” Smit said. “The team had a name for him those days, we used to call him Jasprit Gumrah,” Smit told Cricbuzz.