Naman Ojha, the wicket-keeper batsman was named the captain of India A team on Saturday for the tour of Australia. India A team is to play two four-day matches and a four-nation one-day tournament in Australia, starting on August 14.
Highest run-scorer in domestic season Mumbai’s Shreyas Iyer, who was ignored for the West Indies tour, is also part of the squad, with Kedar Jadhav, Axar Patel, Barinder Sran and Dhawal Kulkarni being the seasoned campaigners.
As many as nine players from the Mahendra Singh Dhoni-led squad who recently toured Zimbabwe are part of the ‘A’ team. The A team will be coached by the legend himself ‘Rahul Dravid’.
Faiz Fazal who got a half-century on his ODI debut in Zimbabwe is also there in the squad. Jayant Yadav, Shahbaz Nadeem and Axar Patel are the three spinners, while pacers are Dhawal Kulkarni, Jaydev Unadkat, Barinder Sran. Sanju Samson is a standby wicketkeeper batsman.
The tour will begin with a match against Australia A in the four-team one-day event on August 14. The other two teams are South Africa A and Australia’s National Performance Squad. All matches will be played in Queensland towns of Townsville, and Mackay.
The two four-day matches against Australia A are scheduled to be played on September 8 to 11 and September 15 to 18 in Brisbane.
India A Squad for the tour of Australia: Naman Ojha (c), Faiz Fazal, Akhil Herwadkar, Shreyas Iyer, Karun Nair, Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, Vijay Shankar, Axar Patel, Jayant Yadav, Dhawal Kulkarni, Jaydev Unadkat, Barinder Sran, Shahbaz Nadeem and Sanju Samson.