Indian cricket has touched new heights in the last one decade or so and the kind of young talent that the nation has been producing perfectly reflects from the bench strength that Virat Kohli & Co. boasts of these days.
One such talent was recently discovered or we can say, came into the spotlight during the Under-19 Cooch Behar Trophy when Atharva Taide, an 18-year-old lad from who hails from Akola, achieved a feat which was untouched for 19 long years.
Atharva Taide has recently scored a triple-ton against Madhya Pradesh with his exceptional knock of 320 runs in the Under-19 Cooch Behar Trophy final and has matched Yuvraj Singh’s record for registering a triple century in the final of the same tournament.
For the unknown, Yuvraj Singh was making strides during his initial domestic cricket-days but it was the 1999-2000 season when he really came into the limelight after registering a massive 358-run individual total against Bihar in the final of Cooch Behar Trophy.
This is the same innings that was shown in the film based on former Indian skipper MS Dhoni’s life, MS Dhoni: The Untold Story and while this knock made Yuvraj the power-hotter we know, Atharva Taide might be on the same path, as well.
While talking about his innings, Atharva Taide revealed that before the Under-19 Cooch Behar Trophy final began on January 28, one of his teammates from Vidarbha had asked Taide to score big in the game.
“Atharva, Ek bada score hona chahiye agar next level ke liye highlight hona hai to, sirf 100 se kuch nahi hota (Atharva, you will need a big score to be highlighted, a 100 is not enough in the current scenario).”
The southpaw replied with all the confidence saying, “Yeh match mein karta hu, bhai (I’ll definitely do it in this match, brother).”
While describing his emotions when he was closing in on the triple century, he said, “there was a lot of pressure as I had never been this close to a triple century, and I wanted to get over with.”
While on 294, Atharva Taide, who was also the team’s captain, hit a four and came even closer to the landmark after which he ran for a double to finally touch the 300-run mark. His innings of 320 included 34 boundaries and a solitary six while he faced 483 deliveries in total.
Atharva Taide’s special knock ensured that Vidarbha lifted their first ever Cooch Behar trophy, just weeks after tasting their first ever Ranji Trophy title during the 2017-18 home season. They had put on a huge target of 614 runs after Madhya Pradesh won the toss, but their opposition was bowled out for a reeling score of 289.
In the last couple of years, we have many youngsters making highlights with their performances in the domestic season but we hope that Atharva Taide doesn’t get carried away with this achievement as matching a record held by a player of Yuvraj Singh’s stature is definitely a sign of him making it big in the future.