KUALA LUMPUR: India cricket captain Himansu Rana has vowed to show Malaysia no mercy when the defending champions face the hosts in their opening match at the ACC Under-19 Youth Asia Cup tomorrow.
India, who won all three previous editions (joint-champions with Pakistan in the inaugural tournament in 2012), are favourites to retain their title with Rana looking for a strong start to the eight-team tournament.
“It’s really good that we are playing Malaysia in Malaysia and we also played them last year,” said Rana of tomorrow’s Group A encounter with the hosts at the Kinrara Oval. “We have done well against them in the past and we hope to maintain that.”
India won by a massive 235 runs after dismissing Malaysia for 54 in the 2016 tournament in Sri Lanka while India also won by eight wickets when the two teams met in 2012.
Rana, who was in the team that lifted the trophy last year, expects the stiffest challenge to come from Pakistan and Sri Lanka this time.
“We beat Sri Lanka in the final last year and they always do well at this level and it will be another good challenge,” said Rana.
“I also rate Pakistan highly because they have very good players. It will be a tough tournament but we will try to continue our run from the last few years.”
Malaysia are competing in this tournament for a fourth time but have yet to win a match after suffering nine defeats.
However, captain Virandeep Singh said gaining exposure against the Test nations is more important at this level.
“It’s an amazing platform for us but we are not really looking at results for now,” said Virandeep.
“For us it’s more about getting exposure at this level against the biggest teams and we are looking forward to it.”
Virandeep is one of five players who played against India last year and he hopes to improve on that performance despite the national youth team missing about seven main players due to the SPM examinations.
“We have a very young team though about five players also played last year,” he said.
“There were a lot of positives to take away from the game against India. We bowled well but our batting let us down. We are looking to improve on that.”
Two Group B matches being held tomorrow are Pakistan against Afghanistan at the Bayuemas Oval in Klang and Sri Lanka versus United Arab Emirates at the Royal Selangor Club in Bukit Kiara.