Masood's steel provides a peek into his batting future

Balls taken to get to a century often start doing rounds after a batsman gets into the 90s. If a batsman is slow, he's often criticised for changing his style of play with a personal milestone in sight. Criticism gathers steam if his team ends up on the wrong side of the result. On Monday, Pakistan Under-19s wicketkeeper-batsman Umair Masood did the opposite against West Indies Under-19s in the quarter-final in Fatullah, and still ended up on the losing side.

Masood had been batting patiently on 41 with a strike rate of under 60 and took 76 balls for his half-century. His 106-ball century meant he took only 30 balls to race from his fifty to hundred. Add to it the pressure of trying to keep Pakistan in the game after they were reduced to 57 for 5, and it's fair to say Masood's task wasn't a cakewalk.

The Fatullah pitch was in no way similar to the one that had been used for the India-Namibia quarter-final. This one was livelier with extra bounce and a tinge of green.

West Indies opening bowlers Alzarri Joseph and Chemar Holder used their raw pace and height to good effect after Pakistan stand-in captain Zeeshan Malik bravely opted to bat. Masood had hardly been tested till now in the World Cup and when the opportunity arrived, he showed exemplary temperament you wouldn't usually not associate with an 18-year-old.

Masood showed no trace of impatience to collect runs or counterattack to unsettle the West Indies bowlers. He started by blocking out Shamar Springer and Ryan John before Salman Fayyaz joined him in the 21st over. The run rate was 2.71 at the time. If Masood was going to block everything, there would be a chance of getting strapped by the shackles of the run rate and the expectations of scoring big in a knockout match.

So once he set his eye in, he started opening up against the loose deliveries, maybe a result of West Indies' complacency, and showed he could use his wrists deftly to cut and drive the balls inside out. "We had lost early wickets so initially our plan was to play ground strokes till the 30th over," Masood said after the match. "Take singles and doubles and rotate the strike. I was sure that if I spent some time I would take the team till the end. I was sure about taking the bowlers on in the slog overs."

When he took the aerial route in the middle overs, he was piercing the ball into the gaps. If he was hitting boundaries, he was beating the fielders with timing and placement. Fayyaz didn't just play second fiddle at the other end. When Holder returned after his first spell of 6-2-16-2, Fayyaz welcomed him back with two attractive fours.

Masood upset West Indies further when he collected three fours in four balls against the spinners - all towards the extra cover region. Masood later said he enjoyed hitting those shots the most. "They (Joseph and Holder) were bowling well, so we thought even scoring three-four runs in their overs would be okay," he said. "Despite that, we scored ten and six in two of their overs. We were confident of scoring more against the others and that's what happened."

Masood had grown in confidence enough by now and was making room and dancing down the pitch, often to carve out runs through different parts of the ground. He was particularly harsh on Springer at the death overs and helped his team amass 85 runs in the last 10 overs. Of course it helped that the West Indies bowlers repeatedly missed their lengths. Out of the 114 balls he faced, there were 59 dots, 15 fours and two sixes which showed he paced his innings to perfection. His previous best score in 10 Youth ODIs innings had been 38.

Masood's century was not completely chanceless, however. He came close to being run-out once and was given a life by the wicketkeeper Imlach for missing a stumping. "All this keeps happening in cricket, it's a matter of chance," he said. "I got the chances so converted them."

Masood attributed his success to the hard yards he had put in for the last four-odd years at the Galaxy Cricket Club in Rawalpindi under the tutelage of his coach Zahoor Ahmed Bhatti. Masood also represented Rawalpindi Rams Under-19s before making it to the national Under-19 team.

Masood did come up with probably the best innings of the World Cup so far, but cricket is a game of chance, like he said, and his knock went in vain. While it wasn't the best script, the knock provided a peek into the mind of a man who could be a future star, like the tournament's tagline suggests.