Youngest ever World Cup player

Sixteen-year-old schoolboy Nitish Kumar made history yesterday when he became the youngest ever World Cup cricket player.

The Ontario-born teenager, aged 16 years and 283 days, was in the Canada team which played Zimbabwe in the Group A World Cup game played at Nagpur, India. Zimbabwe clobbered Canada by 175 runs.

Bangladesh's Talha Jubair, who was 17 years and 70 days old when he featured against the West Indies in the 2007 World Cup, had been the previous youngest player in the tournament.

Before the World Cup, Kumar, who opens the batting, had played five ODIs for Canada, making his debut against Afghanistan in Sharjah in February 2010.

Nicknamed “Tendulkar”, he was born in May 1994, four-and-a-half years after Sachin Tendulkar's international debut against Pakistan in 1989.

Nitish’s father Vikal emigrated with his family from India to Canada in 1989. He died in a car crash in England when Nitish was aged 11. Nitish was also injured in the crash.

Since then he has been known to play every match in his father’s memory and attributes it as the driving force behind the game.

Canada have the oldest and youngest player in the tournament and both will bat at the same time as the oldest player is 40-year-old John Davison, who also opens the batting.

"The first time I saw Nitish was 10 years back when he was only six. I was amazed to see a six-year-old's control over his shots," said Davison.

"Even at that age, he could hit pull shots and I felt he was a special talent."
Kumar's school has given him a month off to play in the World Cup.