It was a bitter disappointment for Hemanth Kumar when he was left out of the Tamil Nadu squad for the Under-19 Cooch Behar Trophy in 1998/99. Being his last season in the Under-19s, Hemanth's ambition of playing for India at this level looked set to remain unfulfilled. When he couldn't make even his state team, the prospect of playing for the country seemed a distant dream. But unknown to him there was pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

At the end of the South Zone league - which Tamil Nadu comfortably won - Hemanth was suddenly summoned to the team for the knockout stages in Hyderabad. He immediately set his stamp on the proceedings with an unbeaten 83 in the quarter finals against Orissa to guide Tamil Nadu to an eight wicket victory. But there was more to come.

In the final Tamil Nadu collided head-on with a strong Punjab team at the Nuclear Fuel Complex Ground in Hyderabad. Curiously enough the contributions of Punjab's two future India players were minimal. Yuvraj Singh made a mere 13 (although he compensated by bludgeoning 358 in the Cooch Behar final one year later) while Sarandeep Singh went wicketless in the 28 overs he bowled in the entire game.

After Tamil Nadu skipper Sunil Viswanathan won the toss and elected to bat, two early blows slightly took the gloss off his decision. Hemanth Kumar arrived into the middle at No.4 with both openers back in the dressing room for just 19 runs on the board. For the next four and a half hours he could not be dislodged from the crease, resisting everything the Punjab bowlers flung at him.

Having struck sixteen boundaries, Hemanth was sixth out for 120 (197 balls), bowled by leg spinner Sandeep Sawal who almost single handedly sliced through the Tamil Nadu innings with 7/92. The team was dismissed for 288 in the 91st and last over of the day.

It was woefully inadequate against a daunting Punjab batting line-up. The top three: Ravneet Ricky, Munish Sharma and Yuvraj all fell cheaply but Punjab still batted through the next two days and 17 overs into the fourth and final day for good measure, piling up 527 thanks to a double century from skipper Sanjay Kumar and a ton from Harman Harry. Batting again 239 runs behind with nothing but pride to play for, Hemanth served notice on the national junior selectors by striking his second century of the match, soon after which the match was called off. He struck 15 boundaries and a solitary six in the course of an unbeaten 103 as Punjab won the title on first innings. Less than three months later Hemanth was in the Indian Under-19 team for a one-day series against Sri Lanka.