Punjab's Vihaan Malhotra celebrating his century against Assam during Ranji Trophy match played at New International Cricket Stadium in New Chandigarh. (Express Photo by Kamleshwar Singh)There are plenty of India Under-19 cricketers who have fallen by the wayside after being unable to establish themselves in the upper tier of cricket. But going by the early signs, Punjab’s Vihaan Malhotra won’t be one of them. Opening the innings for Punjab, Vihaan, 19, scored a century in his First-Class debut against Assam. The innings, comprising 11 fours, helped Punjab reach 287 for 5 in reply to Assam’s 373. The knock gave Vihaan confidence, which will do him a world of good as he finds his feet in senior cricket.During the IPL, Vihaan asked RCB mentor and batting coach Dinesh Karthik what he needs to keep in mind to make a smooth transition from juniors to seniors.“I was coming into the IPL after the Under-19 World Cup, and one of the major conversations I had with Dinesh Karthik sir was about how to be ready for all three formats and the transition from Under-19 to the senior level. After India’s Under-19 World Cup win, my thoughts were on carrying that confidence into my first Ranji Trophy season. A century in my debut match gives a lot of confidence,” Vihaan, a Virat Kohli and Shubman Gill fan, told The Indian Express.Punjab were without opener Prabhsimran Singh, who is on India A duty, and Vihaan got his big break. He first stitched together a 137-run partnership with fellow opener Harnoor Singh (54) before he added 58 runs with skipper Uday Saharan.Vihaan was a member of India’s Under-19 team that won the title in February this year. His breakthrough came when he made 277 runs in two Youth Test matches in England last year. In the Youth ODIs that followed, he made 243 runs in five matches, after which he was selected for the junior World Cup. He made 240 runs, including a hundred against Zimbabwe, and picked up five wickets, including a four-wicket haul against Bangladesh in India’s title-winning campaign.In the Punjab Cricket Association-organised Sher-E-Punjab league, he played for Shubman Gill’s Fazilka Falcons. Vihaan scored 256 runs in eight matches at a strike rate of 179.02.His coach Kamal Sandhu said Vihaan has the skills to play in all three formats.Story continues below this adAlso Read | Badoni’s five, Karun’s 81, Verma’s 209-ball 68: Day 3 of Ranji Round 1“Vihaan is a technically sound player. It was just about making some adjustments in his game for the multi-day format at the senior level. Straight after the Sher-E-Punjab league, he was in Patiala to train, and our focus was to make him bat on the centre wicket with side-arm bowlers bowling good-length balls mostly on the fifth and sixth-stump line, with an occasional bouncer every over. We would train with 10-12 new balls as well as semi-new balls. He had to train his mind to leave the balls early in his innings. He has almost all the shots in his book,” Sandhu said.The coach was happy that Vihaan played a lot of shots in the ‘V’ on Tuesday, but the youngster has also trained for unconventional cricket. “We also worked on his pull and sweep shots against the spinners with the red ball and also his switch hit against spinners,” Sandhu said.Vihaan said minor tweaks during practice were key to succeeding in different formats. “It’s vital that one trains for each format. Post the Sher-e-Punjab league, my aim was to prepare for the multi-day format because my aim was to score big in my breakthrough year,” Vihaan said.Ahead of the match, Punjab head coach Amit Uniyal told Vihaan to make this chance count. “Our talk was about how he can carry the U-19 confidence to the Ranji Trophy and how he is technically sound and just needs to understand the importance of playing the ball late and adjust to the movement of the ball. The key was to watch the ball till late. Vihaan showed that he is capable,” Uniyal said.Nitin Sharma is an Assistant Editor with the sports team of The Indian Express. Based out of Chandigarh, Nitin works with the print sports desk while also breaking news stories for the online sports team. A Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award recipient for the year 2017 for his story ‘Harmans of Moga’, Nitin has also been a three-time recipient of the UNFPA-supported Laadli Media Awards for Gender Sensitivity for the years 2022, 2023 and 2024 respectively. His latest Laadli Award, in November 2025, came for an article on Deepthi Jeevanji, who won India’s first gold medal at the World Athletics Para Championship and was taunted for her unusual features as a child. Nitin mainly covers Olympics sports disciplines with his main interests in shooting, boxing, wrestling, athletics and much more. The last 17 years with The Indian Express has seen him unearthing stories across India from as far as Andaman and Nicobar to the North East. Nitin also covers cricket apart from women’s cricket with a keen interest. Nitin has covered events like the 2010 Commonwealth Games, the 2011 ODI World Cup, 2016 T20 World Cup and the 2017 AIBA World Youth Boxing Championships. An alumnus of School of Communication Studies, Panjab University, from where he completed his Masters in Mass Communications degree, Nitin has been an avid quizzer too. A Guru Nanak Dev University Colour holder, Nitin’s interest in quizzing began in the town of Talwara Township, a small town near the Punjab-Himachal Pradesh border. When not reporting, Nitin's interests lie in discovering new treks in the mountains or spending time near the river Beas at his hometown. ... Read MoreStay updated with the latest sports news across Cricket, Football, Chess, and more. Catch all the action with real-time live cricket score updates and in-depth coverage of ongoing matches.Tags:Ranji Trophy