The national selection committee, headed by Sandeep Patil, picked a young India A squad full of IPl performers for the upcoming one-off warm-up T20 tour opener against the touring South African side scheduled to be played at the Air force Ground in Palam on September 29.
The selection committee named Mandeep Singh as the captain of the team.
While most of the 12-member side played at the India ‘A’ level, the newest entrants are leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal of Royal Challengers Bangalore, left-arm spinner Pawan Negi of Chennai Super Kings and one of last season’s finds Hardik Pandya of Mumbai Indians.
The average age of the team is around 25 with the senior most being Kings XI Punjab and Railways pacer Anureet Singh at 27 and the youngest being chinaman bowler Kuldeep Yadav of KKR.
Former India U-23 captain and T20 specialist Suryakumar Yadav also made the cut. Mayank Agarwal, after a good time for India A in the list A games, was an automatic selection.
The only questionable selection in the squad was Punjab’s Manan Vohra, who has not done anything either for Punjab in domestic cricket or Kings XI Punjab in IPl to warrant a place in the side. In the 10 T20 matches that Vohra played last season, not for once did he cross 40.
India A: Mayank Agarwal, Manan Vohra, Manish Pandey, Mandeep Singh, Surya Kumar Yadav, Sanju Samson, Hardik Pandya, Rishi Dhawan, Anureet Singh, Yuzvendra Chahal, Pawan Negi, Kuldeep Yadav.
Delhi keeps Negi on stand-bye
On a day when left-arm spinner Negi got his maiden call-up in the India A squad, the Delhi selectors and Gautam Gambhir did not find him good enough to be kept in the squad of 15 for the Ranji Trophy opener against Rajasthan.
Negi, who is likely to make his India A debut, has only been kept in the stand-byes of Delhi Ranji Trophy squad.
The Delhi selectors Vinay lamba (chairman), Rahul Sanghvi and Hari Gidwani announced the 15-member squad led by Gambhir, which will take on Rajasthan in the Ranji Trophy opener at Jaipur from October 1-4. Unmukt Chand has been named Gambhir’s deputy.
Ishant Sharma, however, won’t be playing the first match as the selectors could not get in touch with him. Ishant is currently in Bangalore at the India camp but he will be free in the month of October as he has no international commitments.
“We tried contacting Ishant but neither did he pick up calls nor replied to our text messages. Also we don’t know whether he can play a first-class match during the period of his ban. If he is eligible to play we will add him in the squad,” lamba said.
Delhi will be shorter on experience with Virender Sehwag and Mithun Manhas shifting base to Haryana and J&K.
Delhi Squad: Gautam Gambhir, Unmukt Chand, Vaibhav Rawal, Milind Kumar, Nitish Rana, Yogesh Nagar, Mannan Sharma, Pulkit Narang, Sumit Narwal, Pawan Suyal, Sarang Rawat, Pradeep Sangwan, Parvinder Awana, Mohit Ahlawat (wk), Dhruv Shorey.
Stand Byes: Pawan Negi, Vikas Tokas, Subodh Bhati and Rishabh Pant.
Coach: Ajay Jadeja.