The youth are shining for USA cricket. Abhijit Joshi's spectacular performances at the recent Clico U15 World Championship in the West Indies are well documented.

The youth are shining for USA cricket. Abhijit Joshi's spectacular performances at the recent Clico U15 World Championship in the West Indies are well documented.

Elsewhere across USA, boys his age are slowly claiming the spotlight. One such performance was witnessed in California on June 15, when Stanford-I soundly defeated Indus-I.

On winning the toss Stanford decided to bat first hoping that the good batting wicket and flat outfield would provide for a good score. Three quick wickets and at 23 for 3 Stanford were on the back foot and in the dumps.

In walked 16 year old Akash Jagannathan to join with the in-form Rishi Bhardwaj at the other end. This was in the fifth over of the match. For the next 40 overs Rishi and Akash dominated and decimated Indus bowling to add 278 runs in what turns out to be the best partnership for Stanford ever. The two helped Stanford-I post a total of 311 for 3.

The best part of this partnership was that there was not a single slog shot. The partnership was built on singles and excellent running between the wickets. Taking time to settle down both Rishi and Akash kept the score ticking at 6 runs per over quite often scoring at run a ball and dominating the Indus bowling.

Rishi played one of the best innings seen by Stanford for quite some time and was supported by the superb temperament of 16-year old Akash who is a student of the California Cricket Academy.

It was cricket in its true orthodox sense and demonstrated how correct cricket should be played and how runs are to be scored the correct way in these days of slog cricket.

Both had chanceless knocks, Rishi scored 165 not out which is the highest by a Stanford batsman and Akash was not out on 106.

Rohan Chandran (7 overs, 2 maidens, 21 for 3) gave a perfect start to the Stanford bowling with Pranay Suri supporting him ably at the other end to pick up 2 wickets in the initial overs. Shashikant Rai scored 34 and Sandeep Malik scored 32 for Indus as they folded for 172 in 36.3 overs.

Man of the Match : Rishi Bhardwaj