Hanuma Vihari added to India A squad for South Africa tour after being ignored for New Zealand Tests

Hanuma Vihari added to India A squad for South Africa tour after being ignored for New Zealand Tests

SportsCafe Desk

By SportsCafe Desk, SportsCafe Editor

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Hours after the announcement of India squad for the 2-Test home series against New Zealand on Friday, middle-order batsman Hanuma Vihari was added to the India A squad for the South Africa tour. The 28-year-old last played a Test match for India in January this year and played a match-saving knock.

In the match, the 28-year-old had played a match-saving knock of 161-ball 23 not out amid a severe hamstring injury. He stitched an unbeaten 62 run parterning off 258 runs with Ravichandran Ashwin to help India play a draw at the Sydney Cricket Ground. 

Vihari was part of India squad for the England series but did not get to play any match. However, he played a handful of county matches before feature in India's match against County XI ahead of the first Test. Very recently, he played four Syed Mushtaq Ali matches for Hyderabad and aggregated 94 runs from them. 

The right-hander has now been added to India A squad which will travel to South Africa for three 4-day matches starting November 23. Priyank Panchal is leading the 15-man squad which also includes Prithvi Shaw, Devdutt Padikkal and Navdeep Saini. 

Earlier in the day, BCCI announced a 17-man squad for the 2-Test series against New Zealand starting November 25 in Kanpur. 

While Shreyas Iyer has got his maiden Test call-up, the likes of Mohammad Shami, Jasprit Bumrah and Rishabh Pant have been rested. Virat Kohli will join the team and lead from the second Test and Ajinkya Rahane will be in charge of the team in the opening match. 

India squad for New Zealand Tests: Rahane (C), C Pujara (VC), KL Rahul, M Agarwal, S Gill, S Iyer, W Saha (WK), KS Bharat (WK), R Jadeja, R Ashwin, A Patel, J Yadav, I Sharma, U Yadav, Md Siraj, P Krishna, Virat Kohli (from second Test)

India ‘A’ squad for South Africa tour: Priyank Panchal (Captain), Prithvi Shaw, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Devdutt Padikkal, Sarfaraz Khan, Baba Aparajith, Upendra Yadav (wicket-keeper), K Gowtham, Rahul Chahar, Saurabh Kumar, Navdeep Saini, Umran Malik, Ishan Porel, Arzan Nagwaswalla

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