Bangladesh deserve every bit of the credit, with lots of controlled aggression, send-offs and a nagging accuracy with the foot refusing to step off the pedal. Numerically speaking, it was a 51-ball madness by the Indians, where they ended up finding ways to throw their wickets away - seven of them - for just 21 runs.
It started with Bangladesh skipper, Akbar Ali, going down the brave route and opting to bowl first on winning the toss. He gambled for the moisture the overnight rain would've brought into the pitch over the nerves that a big final brings. He had recent history in his favour as well, with the last team having successfully defended a total in an Under-19 World Cup final going way back to 2010.
And boy, his bowlers - starting with Shoriful Islam and Tanzim Hasan Sakib - just didn't disappoint. They strung a couple of maidens first up, and for the first seven overs, all the Indians managed were a grand total of nine runs, with the highest contribution in those nine runs being the extras.
It wasn't that the ball was seaming around hoops, but the batsmen were caught up in a shell of their own for some reason. Add to it the relentlessly accurate lines bowled by the seamers, and Bangladesh found a grip that lasted through the Indian innings.
Divyansh Saxena fell precisely to that, the pressure of playing dot after dot and then in an attempt to break the shackles after a 16-ball two, ended up flashing a wide half volley down backward point's throat. Tilak Varma joined Yashasvi Jaiswal, and the watchul approach only got longer.
It was only after the 26th over - of going at just over three-an-over - that the duo decided to up the ante. And having slipped under the radar, Jaiswal brought up yet another fifty, and immediately after, cut loose to reverse the tables. But it was a false dawn.
Shoriful was brought back, and he produced an effort ball that started short, ended up skidding off the deck and drew Jaiswal into a hurried pull, only to find short mid-wicket. It obviously wasn't the greatest of times for a largely untested Indian middle-order to be coming in, not only to score, but to score quickly and make up for lost time.
But the recovery never came. Siddhesh Veer fell off the very next delivery, playing all around an inswinging full toss for a first-ball-duck. The 'keeper Dhruv Jorel found himself a victim of some horrible running confusion, with both batsmen (him and Atharva Ankolekar) ending up at the same end, at exactly the same time.
The multiple third umpire replays did him in by a microsecond. It was only a matter of time then, with Bangladesh riding the wave of momentum with a paddle and a motor of their own, as the three quicks - Shoriful, Sakib and Avishek Das - blew the tail away.
With only 177 on the board now, at least 50 runs short than the worst of Indian projected calculations would have predicted when Jaiswal was out there, India now not only have to fight a flattened pitch, an opposition batsmen in good form and confidence, but have to find a way to reverse this momentum.
