India 'A' squad named for matches in July against Australia 'A' and South Africa 'A'
The India ‘A’ team, which will participate in a tri-series against Australia 'A' and South Africa 'A' to be held in Chennai and Wayanad from July 19, has been selected by the Sandeep Patil-led selection committee.
Cheteshwar Pujara will lead the Indian side in the first class tournament, previous captain Manoj Tiwary being one of the ‘A’ players who have been promoted to the first team for the Zimbabwe tour – Kedar Jadhav, Robin Uthappa, Manish Pandey and Sandeep Sharma being the others.
India A squad: KLRahul, Mukund, Pujara (C), Karun, Iyer, Naman, Shanker, Amit Mishra, Pragyan, Shardul, Aaron, Mithun, Umesh, Gopal, Aparjit
— FirstpostSports (@FirstpostSports) June 29, 2015
Spinner Parvez Rasool and wicket-keeper Sanju Samson are among those names who have been ignored for the India ‘A’ team as well as the India team.
Umesh Yadav has been named in the ‘A’ squad to get him match practice for India’s upcoming Test assignments. Pujara and Lokesh Rahul, both in the running for a place in the batting order of the India Test team, also need to capitalize on the matches in July to stake their claims to the first team.
Vijay Shankar of Tamil Nadu and Shardul Thakur of Mumbai are the new names in the team.
As with all team announcements, the India ‘A’ squad roster has not failed to raise a few eyebrows – with reactions suggesting that Vinay Kumar is thought to have been a deserving candidate.
Only few questions. 1. Why Binny & Mohit still in ? 2. Why no Vinay Kumar ? 3. Why no Sanju Samson or Saha ? #INDvZIM
— Amit Sharma (@sharma_amit77) June 29, 2015