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Clinton, the father of Australia's 17-year-old ICC U19 World Cup winning batter Oliver Peake, has expressed happiness at his son and team's victory in the tournament and pointed out the influence of legendary Aussie batter Michael Hussey in his game.
Australia broke their winless streak against India in the U19 title clashes as its pace attack helped defend 254 against Men in Blue, winning their first title since 2010 and overall their fourth title on Sunday. Oliver played a crucial role in this game, scoring 46* in 76 balls, with two fours and a six, staying unbeaten till the end. Oliver is the youngest member of Australia's World Cup-winning side, but he did make heads turn with his mature knock, coming to the crease when Australia was 165/4. In four matches, he scored 120 runs at an average of 60.00, ending unbeaten twice. His best score was 49 in the tournament. As Peake smashed the final ball of the innings for a four, Clinton was watching the action from home in Geelong, with his face beaming with pride at his son's assuredness beyond his age. Clinton said that his son has not surprised him since he works hard with diligence. "He has not surprised me, he works incredibly hard," said Oliver's father as quoted by cricket.com.au. "His progression has been coming through diligence and work ethic," he added. Elaborating on his son's strengths, who came as a replacement player, Clinton said that he is aware of what a winning score could be for his side and manages it well. "Even being a replacement player, he could not have hit more balls in preparation without knowing what he was preparing for. One of his strengths really is his ability to manage what he sees to be a winning score," he added. Clinton said that his son's pacing of innings and lack of ego while batting makes him a great asset to his side as he lets others occupy strike and even run a few extra yards between the wickets. "His pacing of an innings is really good, and his total lack of ego in doing what he needs to do to achieve what he is trying to achieve, whether that's just dropping and running and getting someone else on strike or whether that is switch-hitting in the last couple of overs chasing a score," he said. "He really just moves between those gears as well as anyone at 17 years of age I reckon. He reads Mike Hussey's book over and over again, and very much takes a similar mindset into the game," added the player's father. Clinton assists that despite the new-found success and fame, his son will return and resume his year 12 studies at Geelong Grammar. "He is going to have an almighty adjustment to go straight into his year 12 journey from here," his father said, according to the report in cricket.com.au. "He has sucked the marrow out of cricket tournaments over the summer break. But he will need to go to school and get ready for assessment tasks and normal world stuff. They are already in week three, so everyday matters," he concluded. During the run chase of 254, Mahli Beardman dismissed India's skipper Uday Saharan in single digits for the first time in the tournament, which indicated that the chase was not going to be a walk in the park for the Indian team. Adarsh Singh (47) and Murugan Abhishek (42) waged a battle during their time on the crease; however, it wasn't enough to get India across the finishing line. India was bundled out for 174. Besides Beardman, Raf MacMillan also took 3/43 while Calium Vidler took 2/35. Tom Straker and Charlie Anderson got one wicket each. Mahli was the star for Australia, taking 3/15 in his seven overs, getting key wickets of Adarsh, Indian skipper Uday and Musheer. (ANI)
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