When it was young pacer Ravi Kumar’s turn to ask the guest motivator Virat Kohli a question ahead of India’s U-19 World Cup final, he dug one nicely short. “I asked him what is his weakness. And he replied, ‘kyun abhi se out karne ki training kar raha hai kya’ (laughs)?” Who better than Kohli to know all about the menace Indian new-age quick are capable of causing to hopping batters. England were about to find out.
Raj Angad Bawa’s grandfather scored a hockey goal against England in India’s first Olympics after independence. The grandson of the 1948 hero cleaned up England’s top order in the final with a five-for. Ravi Kumar’s father serves in law enforcement back in India, while the son rocked England in the U-19 final with a four-for. Together the teenagers unleashed ferocious bouncers, crafty leg cutters, balls that leapt off a length, deliveries that curved in the air, and it was apt that all this happened in the Caribbean, the spiritual home of fast bowlers, the land of Andy Roberts, Malcolm Marshall, Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose.
By the time the duo was done with their opening spells, England were limping at 61 for 6 and if not for a 95 from James Lew, whose first professional scalp as a county player was a lighting-quick stumping to remove Cheteshwar Pujara, it would have been all over rather too quickly. Such was the craft and venom from Bawa and Kumar after England had chosen to bat.
We might be in 2022 and the Indian senior team’s pace battery is the envy of the world but there is still something about watching a young Indian knock out a batsman with a bouncer. Bawa blasted out the middle-order batsman George Bell with a snorter that is destined to become one of the most watched videos over the next couple of days.
Running in with his hands whirling over each other as if he were concocting a magic potion, he harassed England with a spell that had the entire range. Seam, swing, and disconcerting bounce. Bawa’s father Sukhwinder is a cricket coach who honed the skills of Yuvraj Singh and VRV Singh and would have been proud to see his son stun, shock and awe England. An all-rounder, he already has the highest individual score in the tournament and has dazzled with his bowling as well.
A Couple of years back, George Bell’s father had said that it would be a touch “frightening” if his son came up against pacers like Jofra Archer. He must have got a glimpse of that brutal world when Bawa, kicked up a vicious ‘perfume ball’ as the West Indian pacers used to call their bouncers. It flew up at the throat of Bell, who put up his bat as a shield; the face was saved, the wicket wasn’t as the ball skimmed the outside edge.
It was the left-handed Ravi Kumar who had the first stab at the English with a lovely swinging delivery that curled past the left-handed opener Jacob Bethell to rap him plumb lbw on the back foot. He then had England’s captain Tom Prest chop on an attempted pull on to his stumps to leave England wobbling at 18 for 2 in the fourth over. Bawa then snared four in quick succession to leave England gasping. He had the aggressive George Thomas miscue to covers, William Luxton caught behind, before he produced the ball of the final over to take out Bell. The way his team-mates swooped to mob him told a story.
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