3 former Indian cricketers whose sons played Under-19 cricket for India ft. Roger Binny & Stuart Binny
Playing Under-19 cricket is the first big step towards achieving greatness in the sport. Several top names of the modern era like Virat Kohli, Kane Williamson, Babar Azam, Tim Southee, Rohit Sharma, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Ben Stokes, Joe Root and several others played Under-19 cricket before debuting at the senior level.
Under-19 cricket gained popularity from 1988 onwards when the first-ever U-19 World Cup happened in Australia. The mega event happens once in every two years, allowing the cricketing nations to test their upcoming talents at the grand stage.
India have been the most successful team in U-19 World Cup history with five championships to their name. Speaking of India's U-19 team, Rahul Dravid's son Samit Dravid has broken into the squad now. Six years ago, Rahul coached India to the U-19 World Cup trophy, and now his son Samit is all set to play for the team.
Interestingly, sons of some other former Indian cricket players have also played for the nation at the U-19 level. Here's a list of three such father-son duos.
#1 Roger Binny's son Stuart Binny played for India in U-19 World Cup 2002
Roger Binny is the BCCI president right now, but back in the 1980s, he was one of the main fast bowlers of the Indian team. In fact, Roger played a huge role in India's maiden Cricket World Cup triumph in 1983. He was the highest wicket-taker in the mega event, scalping 18 wickets in eight matches at an economy rate of less than four runs per over.
Nineteen years after Roger won the World Cup with the Indian team, his son Stuart Binny represented the nation in the 2002 U-19 World Cup hosted by New Zealand. Stuart scored 34 runs in four innings with the bat. He even took six wickets with his right-arm pace.
#2 Yograj Singh's son Yuvraj Singh won ICC U-19 World Cup 2000
Yograj Singh played one Test match and six ODIs for India back in the 1980s. 19 years after his last appearance for India, Yograj's son Yuvraj Singh announced his arrival in world cricket by winning the U-19 World Cup 2000 with the Indian Under-19 squad.
Yuvraj aggregated 203 runs in seven innings at a strike rate of 103.57. With the ball, he bagged 12 wickets and bowled five maiden overs, helping the Indian team win the U-19 World Cup in Sri Lanka.
#3 Kris Srikkanth's son Srikkanth Anirudha played for India at the Under-19 level
Another member of the 1983 World Cup winning team whose son played Under-19 cricket for India is Kris Srikkanth. Talking about Kris' career first, he scored more than 6,000 runs for India while representing the country in 43 Tests and 146 ODI matches.
His son Anirudha came into the limelight when he emerged as the highest run-scorer for India U-19s in the home series against England U-19s in 2004-05. However, Anirudha never made it to the senior Indian team. He represented the Chennai Super Kings and the SunRisers Hyderabad during his IPL career.