Hunger for big runs drives understated Anmolpreet

[rkt.india]

 

"The wicket was tough and the ball was doing a bit. So my discussion with Sarfaraz was to rotate the strike," Anmolpreet said after the match. "Lamba leke jaana hai [We wanted to bat long] and then we could hit boundaries."

Anmolpreet's first chance in the World Cup came in the quarter-final, against Namibia, in which he scored a quick 41 and took three late wickets. Before that, he scored a heap of runs in matches that were not shown on television.

He was recently named the Under-19 Cricketer of the Year by the BCCI for his prolific run in the 2014-15 Cooch Behar Trophy. He topped the run-scoring charts with 1154 runs in 10 innings at an average of 144.25 with the help of five hundreds and two fifties; no other batsman in the tournamnt scored more than 850. One of the centuries was a mammoth effort of 322 against Jammu & Kashmir.

 

Anmolpreet's nature of accumulating runs is not recent. In the 2013-14 season, he had helped Punjab Under-19s lift the Vinoo Mankad Trophy with a measured knock of 79 in the final against Bengal and finished the tournament with 300 runs at an average of 50 with three fifties to his name. In the Cooch Behar Trophy that season, he finished with an average of 107.80 by amassing 539 runs from five innings with two hundreds and as many fifties.

 

His hunger to score big emerged during his early years in Patiala and a childhood spent following his cousins to cricket grounds to watch inter-college matches. Sports was running in the family a generation before: his father was the captain of the India handball team and represented the country from 1982 to 2000. When Anmolpreet's talent came to the fore, he joined the DMW Academy and the Black Elephant Club in Patiala to hone his skills.

"My father would guide me on how to go about things, but I have been coached by different coaches at different academies," Anmolpreet told the BCCI website last month. "I started getting more matches from the Army Ground [in Patiala] and then I got a coach who also guided me. He taught me the basics. From there I shifted to the Dhruv Pandove Stadium where I still train."

http://www.espncricinfo.com/icc-under-19-world-cup-2016/content/story/970869.html

[Ankit_sharma03]

His batting style is very similar to Karun nair

[jusarrived]

Like what I have seen of the kid . Seems a good Test prospect if he continues to improve .