The U-19 World Cup brought many young talents in front of us as India beat England in the final by four wickets to claim their fifth title. India had many performers throughout the course of the season but former India chief selector MSK Prasad is particularly impressed by middle-order batter Shaik Rasheed.

The 17-year-old batter placed crucial knocks of 94 and 50 in the semifinal and final against Australia and England respectively. His solid knocks helped India to recover from poor starts on both occasions and thus led the team to safety. The talented right-handed batter has the ability to put the anchor down in crisis and can accelerate whenever needed. He also had to miss a couple of matches during the tournament after being infected by COVID-19. But he made a superb comeback and powered India to the title.

Prasad like Rasheed’s temperament a lot and in a conversation with Cricbuzz said that “he can be our future No. 3 in red ball and white ball cricket.”

“He likes to score in front of the wicket and bats late, giving himself sufficient time to play the ball. Those are very good qualities. What was most impressive was his temperament. He never looked rattled when India were under pressure,” he added.

Rasheed scored a lot of runs before the U-19 World Cup as well. He had amassed 376 runs in six innings for Andhra in the Vinoo Mankad Trophy, at an average of 75.2. Apart from that, he scored a century in the Challenger Trophy and also scored an unbeaten 90 against Bangladesh in the U-19 Asia Cup semifinal. Before the World Cup, he had also scored 72 in a warm-up game against Australia. That shows how consistent he has been and it remains to be seen how he grows as a player in the time ahead.