New Zealand A vs India A: BCCI announces the squad for the first four-day game

The BCCI finally announced India A squad for the highly anticipated first four-day game on New Zealand tour, which is set to allow a few of the Indian Test players to acclimatize to the Pacific conditions. Although the cricketing conditions are going to be very different in Australia and New Zealand, this tour will help the young cricketers face some quality fast bowlers.

Ajinkya Rahane has been named the captain of the side and some other big names included in the squad are Murali Vijay and Rohit Sharma. All these three senior International cricketers have earned a spot in the side for the Test series against Australia and this tour will be crucial specifically for Vijay and Rohit, who are making a comeback to the longest format.

Youngsters Prithvi Shaw and Hanuma Vihari recently made their debut in Tests and are eager to play some big knocks to solidify their position. This will be a crucial tour for these highly talented batsmen as neither of them previously has played in New Zealand previously. Another veteran cricketer Parthiv Patel too makes a comeback in the Indian side and has been roped into the India A side as well.

Mayank and Siraj with a point to prove

Mayank Agarwal and Mohammed Siraj have been outstanding in First-class cricket over the last couple of years and have been banging on the national team doors for a long time. Despite getting a call for the Windies tour, neither could make into the playing XI and didn’t find themselves in the squad for the Australia Tests.

They clearly must be a little disappointed, but they will have to prove the selectors wrong with a strong performance in this tour. Some other cricketers like Shahbaz Nadeem, Rajneesh Gurbani and Navdeep Saini, who had an exceptional Vijay Hazare outing, have been roped into this side.

India squad: M Vijay, Prithvi Shaw, Mayank Agarwal, Hanuma Vihari, Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane (C), Parthiv Patel (wk), K Gowtham, Shahbaz Nadeem, Mohammed Siraj, Navdeep Saini, Deepak Chahar, Rajneesh Gurbani, Vijay Shankar, KS Bharath.

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