Asia Cup 2018: Mayank Markande and Siddarth Kaul among net bowlers in the UAE

Team India are the defending champions of the Asia Cup and they are scheduled to play their first encounter against Hong Kong on September 18 at Dubai International Cricket Stadium. Rohit Sharma has been appointed as their skipper, replacing Virat Kohli and they are touted as among the firm favourites to win the multi-nation championship in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Thereafter, India will lock against arch-rivals Pakistan in the very next day at the same venue. The match is deemed to be the most intensified one in the tournament. In the meantime, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has sent five bowlers, who recently played for India ‘A’, to help the team out.

The new inclusions

Three fast-bowlers- Avesh Khan, Siddarth Kaul and M Prasidh Krishna and a couple of spinners- Mayank Markande and Shahbaz Nadeem have been called to bowl in the net sessions for the next three days. A BCCI official updated about the same as per reports in Scroll.in.

“Not everywhere do you get quality net bowlers and it becomes a problem for the senior team during practice sessions. With back to back games, you don’t expect a Bhuvneshwar Kumar or a Jasprit Bumrah to bowl flat out at the nets. Also, the young academy bowlers at times can’t provide quality practice. Hence we have got some of our next line of bowlers,” the BCCI official mentioned.

Among the five, seamer Kaul has already donned the national colours in the limited-overs series during India’s tour of England. Left-arm tweaker Shahbaz Nadeem is an experienced campaigner and has been plying his trade in India’s domestic circuit ever since 2004.

Mayank Markande captured the imaginations of the supporters by picking up some massive wickets in the start of this year’s Indian Premier League (IPL). Prasidh Krishna and Khan also did reasonably well in the T20 event.

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