India U-19 squad announced for upcoming Youth Asia Cup, Dhruv Chand Jurel named captain

The country’s governing body for cricket on Monday announced the 15-man squad that would be travelling to Sri Lanka in September to participate in the Youth Asia Cup scheduled to held from the September 3 and will conclude on September 15.

With Priyam Garg currently leading the U-19 team in a tri-series in England, Dhruv Chand Jurel, a batsman wicket-keeper and the India U-19 A skipper from Uttar Pradesh, will be in charge. He had recently led India to the finals of a four-team tournament at home but could not win the competition.

Atharva Ankolekar, Suved Parkar, Nehal Wadhera, Arjun Azad, Varun Lavande, Salil Arora, Pankaj Yadav and Akash Singh weren’t selected to play in the tour of England but the Youth Asia Cup sees them returning to the international scene.

Mumbai's Varun Lavande and Punjab's Arjun Azad will be joined by a left-handed opener Thakur Tilak Varma from Hyderabad in the race for the opening two spots in the playing XI, after he scored a promising 47 recently against England U-19.

Nehal Wadhera, co-captain of the U-19 A side, along with Shashwat Rawat from Uttarakhand and Salil Arora from Punjab, has also been named in the squad. Arora's selection comes after he came into the spotlight having scored 654 runs at an average of 54.5 in the Cooch Behar U19 Trophy.

Pankaj Yadav, the only player in the team who had also participated in the Youth World Cup, is one of the three spinners in the squad. All-rounders Atharva Ankolekar and Karan Lal are the other two.

The team has two right-handed and left-handed pacers each. Akash Singh from Rajasthan and Sushant Mishra from Bihar are the left-arm seamer, while Uttar Pradesh's Purnank Tyagi and Karnataka's Vidyadhar Patil complete the list.