Under-19 World Cup: Thrilling India-Pakistan quarter-final on the cards

An ICC media release previews the India-Pakistan encounter to be held on Monday. Tony Ireland Stadium in Townsville is the venue for the exciting quarter-final.

Though India enjoys an overall 9-7 record against Pakistan in U19 cricket, the green shirts have performed better in big and pressure matches, having won five of the six contests in the ICC U19 Cricket World Cups.

Pakistan got the better of India in the semi-final of the 2004 event in Bangladesh, then in the 2006 final in Sri Lanka and overpowered India again in the quarter-final in New Zealand in 2010. In the inaugural event in 1988, Pakistan defeated India by 68 runs while India's only victory in the ICC U19 Cricket World Cup came in the 1998 event in Durban where it beat Pakistan by five wickets.

This is contrary to the senior team India, who are still to lose a match to Pakistan in World Cups. They have thus far played 5 matches in the flagship event and India has won all of them.

In the ongoing event, Pakistan remained unbeaten in Group B while in Group C India suffered a shock defeat against the West Indies before it bounced back to win convincingly against Zimbabwe and Papua New Guinea (PNG).

Looking ahead to the match, Pakistan captain Babar Azam, who is the second leading run-getter with 182 runs, said: "We played India in the Asia Cup in Malaysia before this tournament and we won one (by one run) while the other game (the final) ended in a tie. There is always a tight contest between us and we are expecting nothing different this time.

"Our players are aware of how exciting this is for the supporters of both the teams. They know that there will be millions of fans glued to their screens seeing the action when we meet. The last time we met the games were exciting so we hope that continues."

India captain Unmukt Chand, who has scored 104 runs so far, said: "Pakistan will be a challenge but we have worked hard on our skills coming into the tournament and also on the mental side of our game.

"We played Pakistan twice in Malaysia in June and learnt a lot from those matches. So, we are confident that we can perform very well not only in the quarter-final but also in the rest of the matches."