Long before Zol, senior team skipper and Vijay Zols role model Mahendra Singh Dhoni and players like Munaf Patel and Bhuvneshwar Kumar had moved small-town India from the margins of the game, helping places such as Ranchi, Ikhar and Meerut bask under the cricketing sun.

Jalna doesn't even have a cricket ground. But now, Vijay Zol, skipper of India's Under-19 cricket team, is its biggest hope.

Five kilometres before Jalna, the hoardings begin to appear, all featuring a batsman in India blues. Some are as high as the unimpressive three-storeyed buildings that mark this Maharashtra town, others feature the same player teaming a sharp suit with a pair of aviator glasses. Jalna is bang in the middle of a region that this year witnessed its worst drought in over a century and the man in the posters, Vijay Zol, India's Under-19 cricket skipper, has been a happy distraction.

Once inside the city, Zol's presence gets overwhelming. He plays a booming cover-drive from the top of a shopping arcade. A little further away, he is seen muscling one over square-leg from the middle of a garbage plot. Garbagerather, the lack of an effective disposal mechanismhas for long been Jalna's problem. But the image of a smiling 18-year-old sporting achiever, rising regally over these piles of rubbish, does well to beguile visitors.

Long before Zol, senior team skipper and Zol's role model Mahendra Singh Dhoni and players like Munaf Patel and Bhuvneshwar Kumar had moved small-town India from the margins of the game, helping places such as Ranchi, Ikhar and Meerut bask under the cricketing sun. Now it is Jalna's turn to hold Zol aloft. The celebrations began in 2012 when, as a member of the Under-19 side, Zol won the Youth World Cup in Townsville, Australia. But this time, the jubilation went a notch higher as Zol captained the Indian colts to victory in the Under-19 triangular series in Australia in July. Zol's boys defeated Australia in the final, but what completed the domination was that the team did not lose a single match during the tournament.

... contd.

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