Rachin Ravindra and his New Zealand teammates are less than 24 hours away from their opening game of the ICC U19 Cricket World Cup 2018 in Tauranga.
The hosts will face the West Indies at Bay Oval from 2pm tomorrow under lights, in one of four matches on the opening day of the tournament. Entry to all matches is free.
The 18-year-old Ravindra has been carving out a path towards international cricket since he took his first steps.
“I’ve been playing for a long time,” Ravindra explains.
“Hard-ball cricket since I was five, and I must have been in the backyard playing when I was two years old or something like that. Dad loves cricket, he’s my coach, and he knows a lot about the game so that’s probably where my love of the game came from.
“Watching my idols Tendulkar and Dravid on TV when I was growing up is probably the reason I play cricket,” Ravindra said.
There’s every chance Ravindra could meet one of his heroes too, with Rahul Dravid in New Zealand working with India’s U19 team, but for now the focus is firmly on the opening game of the tournament against the West Indies.
Ravindra, who opens the batting and bowls left-arm off-spin, is looking forward to taking on the defending champions first up under lights.
“We know they’ll be a decent team, but it’s about doing our processes right and getting what we’ve learnt from this whole time and putting it into practice. When we do that we’ll be a formidable team,” Ravindra said.
“We played two day-night games against Zimbabwe before Christmas and they were the first two I’ve ever played. You’ve got to adjust in the field when it comes to catching, under lights it’s a little bit weird but I think now we are all pretty used to it.”
NZ U19 squad: Kaylum Boshier (Captain), Finn Allen, Jakob Bhula, Max Chu, Katene Clarke, Matthew Fisher, Luke Georgeson, Ben Lockrose, Callum McLachlan, Felix Murray, Sandeep Patel, Dale Phillips, Rachin Ravindra, Connor Sullivan & Todd Watson.