India Under-19s won the ACC Men’s U19 Asia Cup final by one wicket off the very last ball at Al Amerat on Saturday, chasing down Pakistan’s 337 for 9 to finish on 339 for 9 and take their ninth title. With three runs needed from the final delivery, number 10 batter Mohit Ulva drove Ahmed Hussain through the infield for four, completing an unbeaten 49 from 26 balls and ending Pakistan’s reign as defending champions in the cruellest way a final can end.
The final both teams lost, then one team won
The scorecard tells a strange story: this was a final both teams lost at different points, and the lower orders decided it in opposite directions. Pakistan were 299 for 3 after 44.1 overs, with a total beyond 360 in sight. They added only 38 runs for their last six wickets in the remaining 35 balls and finished on 337 for 9. India, chasing 338, were 252 for 8 after 41.3 overs and needed 86 from 51 balls with two wickets in hand. They added 87 runs for the loss of one wicket. Manal Chauhan made 47 from 32 balls before falling at 309 for 9, and then Ulva and Chigurupati Venkata added an unbeaten 30 from 16 balls. Pakistan’s tail gave the match away in the last 35 balls of their innings; India’s tail won it in the last 51 balls of theirs.
Usman Khan’s hundred, and the 38-run collapse
Pakistan’s innings was built on one superb knock. Usman Khan made 107 from 111 balls, with 11 fours and three sixes, his second century of the tournament, and shared a 135-run second-wicket stand with Abdul Qadir, who smashed 80 from 54 balls with eight sixes. Captain Farhan Yousaf added 63 from 60 balls. But once Usman fell at 240 for 3 in the 37th over, the innings never regained its shape. Kavya Patel took four wickets for 68 runs and Chigurupati Venkata three for 40, and the last six Pakistan wickets fell for 38 runs. At 299 for 3, 360 had looked likely; Pakistan finished 23 short of it. In a final decided off the last ball, those 23 runs were the whole match.
Four meetings, two wins each
The result settles nothing between these two sides, and that is the point. In eleven months they have now met four times, with two wins each. Pakistan won the last Asia Cup final in Dubai on 21 December 2025 by 191 runs, built on Sameer Minhas’s 172 from 113 balls, with India bowled out for 156. India hit back at the Under-19 World Cup in Bulawayo on 1 February 2026, making 252 and bowling Pakistan out for 194 to win by 58 runs. Pakistan won the group meeting in this tournament on 8 November, when Hamza Zahoor’s unbeaten 100 from 108 balls carried them from 61 for 5 to a three-wicket win chasing 209. And now India have won the final by one wicket off the last ball. Four meetings, four different margins: 191 runs, 58 runs, three wickets, one wicket. The two sides scored 676 runs between them in 100 overs in this final, against 503 in last December’s final. No side has led this rivalry for long, and the two finals were decided by the widest and the narrowest margins the game allows.
What the scorecard says about Pakistan
For Pakistan, the positives are real but so is the lesson. Rizwanullah was the pick of the bowlers with three for 53 from 10 overs, and Niqab Shafiq took two for 57. But Pakistan’s death bowling could not defend 86 runs with two wickets to take: India scored 91 runs for three wickets in their last 10 overs, while Pakistan had managed 61 for six in their last nine. Pakistan had reached the final unbeaten, with 169 balls to spare in the semi-final, and the core of this side, Usman Khan, Hamza Zahoor, Abdul Qadir and Rizwanullah, has now played two Asia Cup finals and a World Cup Super Six in eleven months. The Indian group that lost a final by 191 runs last December has now won one off the last ball, which is how quickly youth cricket turns. Pakistan’s next step is keeping this group together and fixing the death overs, with bat and ball, because the next final between these two sides is unlikely to be far away. It has been a full week for Pakistan cricket: the senior side drew the Rawalpindi Test against Sri Lanka after 100 overs were lost.
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