India’s dominance in the U-19 level continued as the team reached the final of the World Cup on Wednesday for the fourth edition in a row. In the semi-final, Yash Dhull’s team defeated Australia U-19 by 96 runs at the Coolidge Cricket Ground in Antigua for their fifth consecutive win in the tournament.

India will play England in the final on Saturday. Dhull led from the front with a sublime run-a-ball 110. He was assisted by vice-captain Shaik Rasheed (94) and their 204-run partnership helped India recover from 37/2 to reach 290/5.

India’s spinners then stole the spotlight.

Angkrish Raghuvanshi broke a promising second-wicket stand between Campbell Kellaway (30) and Corey Miller (38), and left-arm spinners Vicky Ostwal and Nishant Sindhu did the rest. The Aussies crumbled from 71/1 to 125/7 in the chase, and despite some late resistance, the end was a mere formality.

Dhull later said it was a conscious decision to steady the ship by batting till the 40th over alongside Rasheed without taking much risk.

“The plan from me and Rasheed was to bat till the end, and it worked. The idea was to bat steadily, not to try too many shots, and to bat past the 40th over,” Dhull said at the post-match presentation.

Dhull and Rasheed were eventually dismissed off successive balls in the 46th over. “Myself and Rasheed bat well together, we combine well and it showed. Rasheed and me had a good partnership and we had good partnerships lower down as well,” he added.

The game-changing partnership between Dhull and Rasheed meant India had wickets in hand during the slog overs. The lower-order batsmen made most of the momentum provided by the Dhull-Rasheed pair with wicket-keeper Dinesh Bana hitting 20 off four balls.

India’s innings was one of two distinct halves, with just 86 runs coming off a testing first 25 overs, and then 204 runs ransacked off the second 25.

The captain was lavish in his praise for the team, especially Rasheed, who along with Dhull and a few others had contracted Covid-19 during the group stages of the tournament.

“The way in which the boys are playing is good. Rasheed is mentally very strong. We were in the bubble together and he is always mentally prepared.”

Dhull became the third Indian captain to score a U-19 World Cup century after Virat Kohli and Unmukt Chand and the youngster described it as “a proud moment”.

Wickets fell at regular intervals in the middle overs during the chase, as India’s spinners took the game away from Australia, with only Lachlan Shaw surviving for any significant length of time for a hard-fought 51.

But with Shaw at risk of running out of partners, he went on the attack after reaching his half-century, bottom-edging a big heave on to his stumps to become the ninth wicket to fall.

Australia U-19 skipper Cooper Connolly felt the game went away from them in the last 10 overs when India scored over 100 runs to post an intimidating total.

“Going into the last 10, we thought we were in a good position, but they scored 100 and thus 290 was a bridge too far. The experience was good but the only problem was the bubble,” Connolly said.

Australia will play in Friday’s third-place play-off against Afghanistan at the Coolidge Cricket Ground.

Brief scores:

India U-19 290/5 in 50 ovs (Yash Dhull 110, Shaik Rasheed 94). Australia U-19 194 in 41.5 ovs (Vicky Ostwal 3/42, Ravi Kumar 2/37). India U-19 won by 96 runs.