BCCI announces India A squad for England series: Easwaran captain, eyes on Patidar, Sudharsan, Akash Deep

The BCCI senior men's selection committee led by chairman Ajit Agarkar, on Saturday, announced a 13-member India A squad for the red-ball home series against England Lions. The tour will begin with a two-day warm-up game, starting on January 12 and will be played at the Narendra Modi Stadium Ground 'B', Ahmedabad. The first four-day match, commencing on January 17 will be played at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad.

“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.

Bengal cricketer Abhimanyu Easwaran, who was also with the Indian Test side for the South Africa tour, was named captain. The squad features players like Sai Sudharsan, Rajat Patidar, Sarfaraz Khan, and Pradosh Paul, who all would like to stake a claim for the middle-order spot in the Indian Test side. Sai Sudharsan and Patidar made their ODI debuts in South Africa while Pradosh had a pretty good outing for India A in the red-ball match against South Africa A.

After a disappointing outing in South Africa, Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer will be under pressure.

The pace department will be led by Navdeep Saini and Akash Deep. The latter was added to India's ODI squad in the latter part of the South Africa ODIs and has been on the fringes. The fight for the third seamer's spot will be between Karnataka's Vidwath Kaverappa and veteran Mumbai pacer Tushar Deshpande.

Young Rajasthan left-arm Manav Suthar, who was mighty impressive in the last domestic season and also in the emerging players' tournament, will look to impress the selectors.

The India A and England Lions series will be played as a shadow tour to England's five-match series against India starting from January 25.

Keeping the rigours of a five-match Test series in mind, all these cricketers would know that a good outing here can give them a good chance of barging into the senior team.

The downside of these two matches is their timing. It is set to clash with the round two and round three matches of the Ranji Trophy began 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