Ajay Ratra to lead under-19 team

Wicketkeeper-bastman Ajay Ratra of Haryana will lead the India under-19 team in the three-Test series against the England under-19 team, starting at the Wankhede Stadium in Bombay from Tuesday.

Gnaneshwara Rao of Andhra, who slammed a century for Rest of India against the visitors in the three-day match in Bombay last week, will be his deputy, a Board of Control for Cricket in India statement said on Monday.

The junior selection committee named a 15-member squad after watching the two three-day matches, at Pune and Bombay, against the Englishmen, and the two-day selection trials.

The Test matches will be played in Bombay (January 9-12), Madras (January 20-23) and Hyderabad (January 27-30).

The team:
Ajay Ratra (captain), Ishan Ganda, Nitin Agarwal and Amit Mishra (all Haryana), Gnaneshwara Rao (vice-captain, Andhra), Vinayak Mane (Mumbai), Gautam Gambir (Delhi), Kashinath Khadkikar (Maharashtra), Vidyut Shivaramakrishnan (Tamil Nadu), Parthiv Patel and Sidharth Trivedi (both Gujarat), M Dharmi Chand (Karnataka), Alind Naidu (Vidarbha), Arindam Das (Bengal) and Manindar Singh (Madhya Pradesh).

Stand-bys: Uday Karkera (Mumbai), Deepak Chowgule and Steve Lazarus (both Karnataka), Tushar Shah (Tripura), Manvinder Singh (Haryana), Ansu Kapoor (Uttar Pradesh) and Amit Deshpande (Vidarbha).

Mail Cricket Editor