BCCI announces India A squad for tour of South Africa

The BCCI has announced the squads for India A who are scheduled to go to South Africa next month for an ODI tri-series and a two four-day match series. The one-day team will be headed by Manish Pandey, whereas Karun Nair will don the captaincy hat for the four-day games.

The ODI series involving South Africa and Australia, scheduled to be held in July, has already met with an obstacle with the latter’s ongoing pay dispute, which has put the Australia A team’s participation under a cloud. Earlier this week, the South African board announced its teams for the event, with Aiden Markram captaining the four-day squad, and Khaya Zondo being announced skipper for the one-day team.

A fit-again Manish Pandey, who missed out on the Champions Trophy 2017 with a side strain, will lead the one-day team that has a number of IPL performers in it, most notably Krunal Pandya, who will make his ‘A’ team debut. The side also has the domestic big names in the form of Karun Nair and Mandeep Singh, as well players like Yuzvendra Chahal and Axar Patel, who have managed to break into India’s limited-overs side over the past year and a half.

In the four-day squad, Test triple centurion Karun Nair will lead the side, hoping to shed away the ignominy of a disappointing IPL. A young team, featuring exciting fast bowling prospects in Mohammad Siraj and Aniket Choudhary, both of whom came into the limelight with IPL 2017, also includes the likes of Shahbaz Nadeem and Jayant Yadav, proven performers in the domestic circuit.

While exciting left-handed batsman Rishabh Pant will don the keeping gloves in the limited-overs squad, Ishan Kishan, who had a decent run with Gujarat Lions in 2017, will have the same role to play in the four-day games.

Full squads: One-Day Series: Manish Pandey (c), Rishabh Pant (wk), Mandeep Singh, Shreyas Iyer, Sanju Samson, Deepak Hooda, Karun Nair, Krunal Pandya, Vijay Shankar, Axar Patel, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jayant Yadav, Basil Thampi, Mohammed Siraj, Shardul Thakur, Siddarth Kaul.

Four-day games: Karun Nair (c), Ishan Kishan (wk), PK Panchal, Abhinav Mukund, Shreyas Iyer, Ankit Bawne, Sudip Chatterjee, Hanuma Vihari, Jayant Yadav, Shahbaz Nadeem, Navdeep Saini, Mohammed Siraj, Shardul Thakur, Aniket Choudhary, Ankit Rajpoot.