Unmukt Chand - The blossoming Indian star

Unmukt Chand, the U-19 World Cup winning captain, has become famous over the last few days in the media circles and among cricket lovers. He represents the India U-19 team and the Delhi Daredevils side.

He was the captain of the Indian U-19 team which won the recently concluded U-19 World Cup in Australia. He scored an unbeaten 111 runs off 131 balls, which included 6 sixes and 7 fours in the final match against Australia, guiding India to its third U-19 World Cup. His match-winning innings in the final showed a lot of maturity.

He remains calm and cool under pressure as a captain on field and enjoys his batting. Having played 21 U-19 matches, Unmukt has scored 1149 runs with a career average of 67.58 including 5 tons. All these stats suggest he is a great talent.

He is currently playing for Daredevils in CL T-20 in South Africa and left his mark in the first match itself against KKR, scoring a blistering 47 runs. He got loads of praises from Jayawardane, who publicly claimed of him becoming a mature cricketer in the future. KP has also praised the young talent.

No doubt he is acquiring a great launching platform learning under the legends. But the biggest question is “can he outdo Kohli?” Well that’s too early to answer. Several media personnel and social networking sites are highlighting him as the next Kohli. Well that’s too early to judge according to me. For a player to become of Kohli’s caliber requires a lot of potential.

No doubt, till date this young Unmukt has promised a lot and has shown lot of potential to become a permanent member of the Indian cricket team. But yet these are early days for him. He has not even played a single international match and labelling him as the next Kohli will only pile extra pressure on him. The extra pressure of performing to his best in every match he plays, the pressure of 1.2 billion fans. These pressures might hamper his talent and derail his career. And if that happens, it will be a big loss for the Indian cricket team.

Well it’s the right time when he should be introduced onto the international arena. He should be prepared in such a way that he would be able to fill up the gap that will be created after Sachin’s retirement. Moreover he should be prepared for 2015 World Cup. And speculation of him being the next Kohli must be stopped to let the young talent blossom as the “First Unmukt.”