U19 WC: COVID-hit India stroll into QFs after beating Ireland; Australia win too
Tarouba (Trinidad), Jan 20 (PTI) Record four-time champions and title contenders India stormed into the Super League quarterfinals of the U-19 World Cup after thrashing minnows Ireland by 174 runs in a league game here, in which they barely managed to field a playing XI.
India started their campaign on a winning note, beating South Africa by 45 runs on last Saturday and the win on Wednesday by such a huge margin is significant as the team fielded only available 11 players after six members of the side were forced into isolation after testing COVID positive.
Put into bat at the Brian Lara stadium, India first rode on Harnoor Singh's brisk 88 and his opening partner Angkrish Raghuvanshi's run-a-ball 79 to post a challenging 307 for five.
The Hrishikesh Kanitkar-coached side then bundled out the opposition for 133 in 39 overs to register a comfortable win.
Skipper Yash Dhull and his deputy Sheikh Rasheed were among those isolated after testing positive as Nishant Sindhu led the side.
Left-handed Harnoor and Angriksh stitched a 164-run stand at the top to ensure Indian bowlers had a decent total to defend.
Harnoor hit 12 fours in his 101-ball knock while Angriksh found 10 boundaries and two sixes.
Stand-in skipper Nishant Sindhu (36 off 34; 5x4s) and Raj Bawa (42 off 64; 2x4s; 1x6) then shared a 64-run stand for the third wicket.
As big hits dried up towards the end, Rajvardhan Hangargekar struck five sixes, including a hat-trick of maximums in the last over, in his fiery 17-ball 39-run unbeaten cameo that took India past the 300-run mark.
Harnoor, who has been in sparkling form, drove the ball elegantly. If it was pitched up on the middle and leg, the left-hander from Jalandhar flicked it exquisitely. The ones pitched up on the off-side were driven in the cover region as Harnoor ticked the board nicely.
In contrast, Angriksh chose to muscle the ball around. He cut, pulled and also drove in an aggressive manner as none of the Ireland bowlers could trouble the Indian openers.
Harnoor pulled left-arm spinner Matthew Humphreys (1/69) over deep mid-wicket for a six to raise his half-century. It was the same bowler who trapped him leg before later.
Angkrish was dismissed by spinner Jamie Forbes (1/38).
Chasing 308, Ireland were teetering at 17 for three after losing both openers Liam Doherty (7), David Vincent (8) and Jack Dickson (0) cheaply inside seven overs.
Ireland never recovered from the early blows as right-arm medium pacer Garv Sangwan (2/23) sent back skipper Tim Tector (15) in the 15th over.
Wicket-keeper Joshua Cox (28 off 46 balls) tried to take the game deep, but it was too little and too late.
Sangwan struck again, this time removing Cox in the 21st over as Ireland lost half of its side for 66.
Scott Macbeth (32) only delayed the inevitable before India bowled out Ireland for 133. Left-arm orthodox spinner Aneeshwar Gautam (2/11 ) and off-spinner Kaushal Tambe (2/8) cleaned up the lower middle order and tail-enders.
For India, Sangwan, Gautam and Tambe picked two wickets each while Rajvardhan Hangargekar (1/17), Ravi Kumar (1/11) and spinner Vicky Ostwal (1/22) also did their job.
India now need to have enough players for their last Group B game against Uganda on Saturday as besides Dhull and Rasheed, batter Aaradhya Yadav, Vasu Vats, Manav Parakh, and Siddharth Yadav also tested positive for the virus.
In a Group D match in Basseterre, Australia defeated Scotland by seven wickets.
Put into bat, Scotland rode on Charlie Tear (54), Thomas Mackintosh (54) and Oliver Davidson's (33) to post a respectable 236 for eight.
Australia sent Scotland in to bat first at the Conaree Cricket Centre, a decision that looked like it might backfire when Scotland's openers made a positive start with Tear and Davidson sharing 88 runs for the first wicket.
For Australia, Aiden Cahill (2/33) and William Salzmann (2/38) picked up two wickets apiece.
Chasing, Australia started well, Teague Wyllie (101 not out), Cahill (72) and Campbell Kellaway (47) sparkled with the bat cantered home in 39.5 overs
Brief Scores: India U19 307/5 (Harnoor Singh 88, Angkrish Raghuvanshi 79; Muzamil Sherzad 3/79, Jamie Forbes 1/38) beat Ireland U19 133 (Scott MacBeth 32, Joshua Cox 28; Kaushal Tambe 2/8, Aneeshwar Gautam 2/11) by 174 runs.
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Single higher education regulator bill tabled in LS; Oppn flags ‘centralisation,' JPC likely
New Delhi: A bill to set up a 13-member body to regulate institutions of higher education was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan introduced the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, which seeks to establish an overarching higher education commission along with three councils for regulation, accreditation, and ensuring academic standards for universities and higher education institutions in India.
Meanwhile, the move drew strong opposition, with members warning that it could weaken institutional autonomy and result in excessive centralisation of higher education in India.
The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, earlier known as the Higher Education Council of India (HECI) Bill, has been introduced in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The proposed legislation seeks to merge three existing regulatory bodies, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), into a single unified body called the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan.
At present, the UGC regulates non-technical higher education institutions, the AICTE oversees technical education, and the NCTE governs teacher education in India.
Under the proposed framework, the new commission will function through three separate councils responsible for regulation, accreditation, and the maintenance of academic standards across universities and higher education institutions in the country.
According to the Bill, the present challenges faced by higher educational institutions due to the multiplicity of regulators having non-harmonised regulatory approval protocols will be done away with.
The higher education commission, which will be headed by a chairperson appointed by the President of India, will cover all central universities and colleges under it, institutes of national importance functioning under the administrative purview of the Ministry of Education, including IITs, NITs, IISc, IISERs, IIMs, and IIITs.
At present, IITs and IIMs are not regulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Government to refer bill to JPC; Oppn slams it
The government has expressed its willingness to refer it to a joint committee after several members of the Lok Sabha expressed strong opposition to the Bill, stating that they were not given time to study its provisions.
Responding to the opposition, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government intends to refer the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for detailed examination.
Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari warned that the Bill could result in “excessive centralisation” of higher education. He argued that the proposed law violates the constitutional division of legislative powers between the Union and the states.
According to him, the Bill goes beyond setting academic standards and intrudes into areas such as administration, affiliation, and the establishment and closure of university campuses. These matters, he said, fall under Entry 25 of the Concurrent List and Entry 32 of the State List, which cover the incorporation and regulation of state universities.
Tewari further stated that the Bill suffers from “excessive delegation of legislative power” to the proposed commission. He pointed out that crucial aspects such as accreditation frameworks, degree-granting powers, penalties, institutional autonomy, and even the supersession of institutions are left to be decided through rules, regulations, and executive directions. He argued that this amounts to a violation of established constitutional principles governing delegated legislation.
Under the Bill, the regulatory council will have the power to impose heavy penalties on higher education institutions for violating provisions of the Act or related rules. Penalties range from ₹10 lakh to ₹75 lakh for repeated violations, while establishing an institution without approval from the commission or the state government could attract a fine of up to ₹2 crore.
Concerns were also raised by members from southern states over the Hindi nomenclature of the Bill. N.K. Premachandran, an MP from the Revolutionary Socialist Party representing Kollam in Kerala, said even the name of the Bill was difficult to pronounce.
He pointed out that under Article 348 of the Constitution, the text of any Bill introduced in Parliament must be in English unless Parliament decides otherwise.
DMK MP T.M. Selvaganapathy also criticised the government for naming laws and schemes only in Hindi. He said the Constitution clearly mandates that the nomenclature of a Bill should be in English so that citizens across the country can understand its intent.
Congress MP S. Jothimani from Tamil Nadu’s Karur constituency described the Bill as another attempt to impose Hindi and termed it “an attack on federalism.”
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