Dhruv Chand Jurel to lead India in 2019 ACC U19 Asia Cup

India’s junior selection committee has recently named a 15-man squad for the 2019 Asia Cup, also called the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) Under-19 Cup. The tournament is set to take place in Sri Lanka from September 3 to 15. The selection committee met in the United Kingdom (UK) to pick the India U19 team for the Asia Cup. The team will be captained by Dhruv Chand Jurel.

Jurel is an 18-year-old from Agra and is currently in England with the U19 team, which is playing the tri-nation series, involving the hosts and Bangladesh U19. He took four catches in the first game at Worcester against the home team. In the second match at the very venue, he scored 34 runs versus Bangladesh. Jurel is currently playing under the leadership of Priyam Garg.

Prior to the main contests, Jurel scored an unbeaten 49 versus the Young Lions in Loughborough. In 2019 itself, during the quadrangular U19 series back in March, Jurel had scores of 38, 28, 40, representing India A U19. India B U19, Afghanistan U19 and South Africa U19 were the other two teams in the series. Jurel will now be looking to make the most of the chance.

Nine changes from the previous squad

From the squad, which is playing the tri-nation series, the selectors have made as many as nine changes. Garg, Shubhang Hegde, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Pragnesh Kanpillewar, Kartik Tyagi, Prabhat Maurya, Ravi Bishnoi, Sameer Rizvi and Divyaansh Saxena are not named for the ACC U-19 Cup.

In their places, Suved Parkar, Nehal Wadhera, Arjun Azad, Varun Lavande, Salil Arora, Atharva Ankolekar, Pankaj Yadav and Akash Singh have been named. India are the defending champions of the U19 Asia Cup. Last year, India finished the group stage on top of the points table with three wins.

In the semi-final, the team, captained by Simran Singh, edged Bangladesh U19 by a mere two runs. In the final, the visitors thrashed Sri Lanka U19 by 144 runs at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Dhaka. Jaiswal became the Player of the Series for his sterling shows with the bat in hand.

Here is the squad for the 2019 Asia Cup  

Dhruv Chand Jurel (c & wk), Suved Parkar, Thakur Tilak Verma, Nehal Wadhera, Arjun Azad, Shashwat Rawat, Varun Lavande, Salil Arora, Karan Lal, Atharva Ankolekar, Pankaj Yadav, Akash Singh, Sushant Mishra, Purnank Tyagi, Vidyadhar Patil.