Mumbai’s left-arm spinner Atharva Ankolekar, who is a son of a BEST Bus conductor, powered India U19 to the U19 Asia Cup title with a fabulous spell of 5/28 in the final against Bangladesh U19 at Colombo on Saturday.
Batting first, India U19 were bowled out for a paltry total of 106 runs. However, Ankolekar came on to bowl and spun the match in India’s favour. Bangladesh U19 were ultimately bowled out for 101 runs and, thus, the Indian side emerged victorious by five runs.
Ankolekar studies commerce at City College now and he was encouraged to take up the game as a passion and a profession by his father who passed away when he was just 10 years old. His mother was then given his father’s job and, thus, she fulfilled Atharva’s father’s dream with her hard work.
Atharva was not only impressive in the final. In fact, he registered figures of 3/36 in a group game against Pakistan and 4/16 against Afghanistan after that as well.
Atharva was supported well by pacer Akash Singh who picked up three wickets in the final on Saturday. Vidyadhar Patil (1/25) and Sushant Mishra (1/27) also picked up a wicket each. And it was due to the batting efforts of skipper Dhruv Jurel (33) and lower order batsman Karan Lal (37) that India could cross the hundred-run mark.
Brief Scores: India U-19 106 (Karan Lal 37; Dhruv Jurel 33; Shamim Hossain 3/8) beat Bangladesh U-19 101 (Akbar Ali 23; Mrittunjoy Chowdhury 21; Atharva Ankolekar 5/28; Akash Singh 3/12) by five runs