‘Indian’ players in USA’s playing 11. (Photo- Johan Rynners-ICC/ICC via Getty Images)
U19 World Cup 2026: The ICC Under-19 Men’s Cricket World Cup 2026 has started. The first match of the tournament took place at the Queens Sports Club in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. In which the Indian team faced the American team, but the playing 11 of the American team made the most headlines in this match. In fact, the entire 15-member team and playing eleven of America Under-19 is made up of players of Indian origin, which attracted everyone’s attention.
‘Indian’ players in USA’s playing 11
The playing 11 chosen by USA for this match included the names of Utkarsh Srivastava, Adnit Jhamb, Nitish Sudini, Arjun Mahesh, Amrinder Gill, Sabreesh Prasad, Adit Kappa, Sahil Garg, Amogh Reddy Arepalli, Ritwik Appidi and Rishabh Shimpi. The special thing is that all these players have connections with India. It was interesting to see that a team like America, which is just emerging in cricket, is completely dependent on young players of Indian origin. This shows how deeply the talent of Indian cricket is spread, even among foreign teams.
This is not the first time that players of Indian origin are playing for another country. But this is perhaps the first time that the entire team is comprised of players of Indian origin. The command of this team is being handled by Utkarsh Srivastava, who was born in Pune city of India. On the other hand, the four players who were not selected for playing, Advait Krishna, Ryan Taj, Sahir Bhatia and Shiv Shani, are also of Indian origin.
USA team flopped in batting
Talking about the match, Indian captain Ayush Mhatre won the toss and decided to bowl first. But the USA team could not do anything special. The entire team was all out after scoring 107 runs in 35.2 overs. During this period, no batsman could touch the 40 run mark. Nitish Sudini scored the highest score of 36 runs, but the rest of the batsmen could not stand against the Indian bowling. At the same time, Indian bowlers performed brilliantly, especially fast bowler Henil Patel did wonders. He took 5 wickets.