India skipper Uday Saharan pinpoints reason for loss in U19 World Cup final against Australia

India U19 skipper Uday Saharan lamented the poor execution as the reason behind their loss in the ICC U19 ODI World Cup final against Australia on Sunday (Feb 11) in South Africa. Chasing a modest 254, India U19 were bowled out for 174 runs and lost the final by 74 runs. The skipper, however, said that he was proud of how his team played throughout the tournament.

"We were prepared for it but we couldn't execute well. That is where we went wrong," said Saharan in the post-match presentation. "It was fine. We played a few shots and couldn't spend some time on the surface."

"It was great, I am very proud of the boys, they played very well. The entire team, from the start to the end showed fighting spirit. They played very well and I am proud of them," Saharan added.

India were never in the chase as they lost their first wicket in the third over and the momentum never built up after that. Once Arshin Kulkarni departed, Musheer Khan and Adarsh Singh added 37 runs for the second wicket to give the chase of 254 some stability. Mahli Beardman then removed Musheer and skipper Uday Saharan as India were restricted to 55/3.

Sachin Dhas was the next to fall with Priyanshu Moliya and Aravelly Avanish going back soon as well. India's last hope Adarsh Singh (47) then fell after off Beardman as India crossed the 100-run mark. Raj Limbani was the next to get out before Murugan Abhishek played a fantastic hand of 42 runs and added 46 runs with Naman Tiwari for the ninth wicket before Tom Straker got Saumy Pandey for the last wicket.

Australia's Mahli Beardman was adjudged player of the match for his 3/15 in 7 overs while Raf McMillan also took 3/43 in 10 overs.