Under-19 World Cup: How Vicky Ostwal braved odds to get his action right

Under-19 World Cup once stood the risk of completely giving up on his bowling. It's a story that's played out well now, but there was a time when it all began quite painfully for him. Vicky Ostwal is 19-going on-20 right now. A World Cup winner already, this exciting young talent - who bowls left-arm slow - hails from Lonavala, a hill-station between Mumbai and Pune. Born to a local businessman there, Vicky was once branded a 'chucker' and almost not allowed to bowl in state selection matches. There was a time when he was dropped from the zonal Under-16 state team due to an action that was "deemed" suspect. Doubts were raised about his action in the zonal camps too.

Read AlsoFuture looks bright for the boys who showed great maturity, high skills to win Under-19 World Cup

Despite little age-group cricket in India for the past two seasons due to Covid-19, the India under-19 team notched up a nine-game unbeaten run, clinching two back-to-back tournaments. The way this bunch conquered an outbreak of Covid-19, forcing India to barely find 11 fit players for the games

We'll get to the story later but more importantly, Ostwal's story is a reminder of how BCCI needs to work at the junior level to ensure young cricketers don't become a victim of name-calling, public shaming and other such forms of humiliation. "The most hurtful thing wasn't him being called a 'chucker'. The hurtful thing was him being called that publicly, being left out of the team, being 'branded' but nobody bothered to realise he was barely a 14-15 year-old boy with no broader understanding of anything. Instead of public- shaming, someone should've come to his aid and helped him. Nobody did," say those who saw it unfold all those years ago. Ostwal's father,