BCCI announces India A squad for England series: Easwaran named as the captain
BCCI announces India A squad for England
Ajit Agarkar, the head of the BCCI senior men's selection committee, unveiled the 13-member India A team on Saturday for the red-ball home series against the England Lions. A two-day warm-up match at the Narendra Modi Stadium Ground 'B' in Ahmedabad on January 12 will kick off the tour. The first game will take place starting on January 17 at Ahmedabad's Narendra Modi Stadium.
“The Men’s Selection Committee named a 13-member India ‘A’ squad for a 2-day warm-up fixture & the first multi-day match against England Lions. India ‘A’ will play a total of 3 multi-day matches in the tour,” BCCI said in a release.
The skipper was none other than Bengal cricketer Abhimanyu Easwaran, who was touring South Africa with the Indian Test team. Sai Sudharsan, Rajat Patidar, Sarfaraz Khan, and Pradosh Paul are among the players in the squad who are vying for a middle-order berth in the Indian Test team. In the red-ball encounter against South Africa A, Pradosh had a respectable performance for India A, while Sai Sudharsan and Patidar made their ODI debuts in South Africa.
There will be pressure on Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer following a lacklustre performance in South Africa.
Navdeep Saini and Akash Deep will be in charge of the pace department. The latter has been sidelined since being added to India's ODI team during the latter stages of the ODI series against South Africa. Mumbai pacer Tushar Deshpande and Karnataka's Vidwath Kaverappa will compete for the third seamer's slot.
Manav Suthar, a young left-armer from Rajasthan who showed great promise in both the developing players' tournament and the previous domestic season, will try to win over the selectors.
Beginning on January 25, the England Lions and India A series will serve as a prelude to England's five-match series against India.
All of these cricket players would be aware that a strong performance here might increase their chances of breaking into the senior squad, given the demands of a five-match Test series.
The scheduling of these two matches is a drawback. It is scheduled to conflict with the Ranji Trophy round two and round three matches, which got underway on Friday.
India A Squad: Abhimanyu Easwaran (Captain), Sai Sudharsan, Rajat Patidar, Sarfaraz Khan, Pradosh Ranjan Paul, KS Bharat (WK), Manav Suthar, Pulkit Narang, Navdeep Saini, Tushar Deshpande, Vidwath Kaverappa, Dhruv Jurel (WK), Akash Deep