{"id":407811,"date":"2026-02-04T18:00:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T18:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/407811\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T18:00:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T18:00:20","slug":"india-beat-afghanistan-to-reach-final-of-u19-cricket-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/407811\/","title":{"rendered":"India beat Afghanistan to reach final of U19 Cricket World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"

India will play England in the final of the Under-19 World Cup after a record-breaking run-chase against Afghanistan in Harare.<\/p>\n

The five-time winners chased down an Under-19 World Cup record target of 311 for the loss of just three wickets and with more than eight overs to spare in a blistering display.<\/p>\n

Aaron George hit 115 after 14-year-old Vaibhav Suryavanshi, who already has a 35-ball IPL century to his name<\/a>, smoked a scintillating 68 off just 33 balls after being dropped twice.<\/p>\n

Captain Ayush Mhatre added a half-century of his own as India waltzed into their 10th final against an England side looking for their first win in the competition since 1998.<\/p>\n

Faisal Khan Shinozada and Uzairullah Niazai both hit centuries for Afghanistan, who looked well set until the India batters took over.<\/p>\n

“Our discussion was simple – just play our natural game,” said Mhatre. “The wicket was playing beautifully, a real flat wicket, so we knew if we played naturally, it would be a manageable total.<\/p>\n

“Suryavanshi played a major role in the chase. Scoring 90 runs in the first 10 overs released all the pressure, making it much easier for the rest of us to build the innings.<\/p>\n

“George is a classy, fabulous batsman. He anchored the innings perfectly.”<\/p>\n

There will be ball-by-ball commentary of Friday’s final on BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra and the BBC Sport website and app from 07:30 GMT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"India will play England in the final of the Under-19 World Cup after a record-breaking run-chase against Afghanistan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-407811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}