Baba Aparajith to lead India in ACC Emerging Cup

Baba Aparajith will captain India in the Asian Cricket Council's Emerging Cup tournament, the senior selection committee announced on Friday(March 10).

Himachal Pradesh's Ankush Bains has been named his deputy for the tournament. He will also play in the capacity of a wicketkeeper. Prithvi Shaw, the Mumbai teen sensation who became the first Mumbai batsman to smash a hundred on Ranji Trophy debut since Amol Muzumdar, has also been included in the squad.

The team boasted of performers at the domestic level like offspinner Aamir Gani, left-armer Kanishk Seth, Hanuma Vihari, Abhimanyu Easwaran, the Bengal opener, Mayank Dagar, Virat Singh and more.

The emerging cup is an eight-team, 50-over tournament authorised by the Asian Cricket Committee, scheduled to be played in Dhaka between March 15 to 26. Essentially an Under-23 tournament, the tournament rules allow India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh to feature up to four senior national players. The four other teams - Afghanistan, UAE, Hong Kong, Nepal - will play their full-strength national sides.

While India didn't name any of their senior players for participation in the tournament, the selection committee is understood to have picked a side comprising players that the committee wishes to assess at a higher level.

Also on the day, the junior selection committee named 25 probables for the Under-19 camp that will train at the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore. Shaw has also been named in the probables to train at the NCA.

ACC Emerging Cup squad: A R Eswaran, Prithvi Shaw, Shubham Gill, Baba Aparajith (c), Hanuma Vihari, Virat Singh, Shivam Chowdhary, Ankush Bains (vice-captain, wk), R Chahar, Mayank Dagar, Amir Gani, Aswin Crist, K. R. Sashikanth, Nagarkoti, Kanishk Seth.

NCA Under-19 camp probables: Prithvi Shaw, Shubman Gill, Himanshu Rana, Mun Jose, Riyan Parag, S Radhakrishnan, Priyam Garg, Mayank Rawat, Salman F Khan, Harvik Desai, Het Patel, Swapnil Fulpagar, Abhishek Sharma, Anukul Roy, Kamalesh Nagarkoti, Yash Thakur, Shivam Mavi, Ishan Porel, Vivekanand Tiwary, Akash Sen Gupta, Darshan Nalkande, R D Chahar, Shiva Singh, Harsh Thaygi, Bhagat Varna.