Venugopal Rao to lead India A in Australia

Venugopal Rao has been appointed captain of the India A squad for the tour of Australia in July. The team will play three four-day games and three limited-overs matches against the A teams of Australia, Pakistan and New Zealand.

The squad includes Cheteshwar Pujara, who rose to prominence during the Under-19 World Cup in Sri Lanka earlier this year, as well as Robin Uthappa and RP Singh, currently with the senior team for the ODIs in the West Indies.

Pujara topped the aggregate in the U-19 World Cup for all teams with 349 runs from six games, at an average of 116.33, which included an attacking 129 against England in the semi-finals. The team also features Rohit Sharma, a promising right-hand batsman from Mumbai, and Tejinder Pal Singh, who had a good domestic season with Railways. The squad includes three fast bowlers, three specialist openers and Reetinder Sodhi, the allrounder. Parthiv Patel is the lone wicketkeeper and is also the vice-captain.

India A Venugopal Rao (capt), Parthiv Patel (wk), Gautam Gambhir, Shikhar Dhawan, Robin Uthappa, Rohit Sharma, S Badrinath, Reetinder Sodhi, Tejinder Pal Singh, Piyush Chawla, Cheteshwar Pujara, RP Singh, Shib Shanker Paul, Ravindra Jadeja, Siddharth Trivedi.