Dropped for the three-match ODI series against New Zealand, K.L. Rahul has been drafted into the Board President’s XI for the warm-up games against New Zealand, the first of which will be played at the Brabourne Stadium, Cricket Club of India (CCI), on Tuesday.
In the limited opportunities that he has got in ODIs, Rahul has met with some success as an opener, and in all probability, will open the innings with Mumbai’s dashing opener Prithvi Shaw.
The wrist spinners have been the flavour of the home season against Australia and New Zealand-A.
And the national selectors made an eleventh-hour calculated move by adding leg-spinner Karn Sharma to the squad for the practice matches before the first ODI against India to be played at the Wankhede Stadium on Sunday.
Chief architect
Karn was the chief architect of India-A team’s thumping 2-0 win against New Zealand-A in the four-day First Class games played at Vijayawada. He took 16 wickets in the ‘A’ series and nine in the limited-over games.
He went wicketless in the two ODIs he played against Sri Lanka in 2014, but considers himself a matured spinner now.
Karn, who has moved to Vidarbha this season, will get another chance to bowl in tandem with left-armer Shahbaz Nadeem who also tormented the New Zealand-A batsmen picking up 14 wickets in the four-day games and eight in the limited-over games. The two games will be played with the teams given the freedom to deploy all players, which means runs scored, wickets taken and catches held will not go into the official record books.
The Board President’s XI has some bold and exciting strokeplayers like skipper Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant, Karun Nair, Rahul and Gurkeerat Mann.
But the locals will be curious to see how the 17-year-old precocious talent Prithvi Shaw shapes up against a good New Zealand fast bowling attack that includes Tim Southee, Trent Boult, Matt Henry and Adam Milne.
The teams (from):
Board President’s XI: Shreyas Iyer (capt.), Prithvi Shaw, Shivam Chaudhary, Karun Nair, K.L. Rahul, Gurkeerat Mann, Milind Kumar, Rishabh Pant (wk), Shahbaz Nadeem, Dhawal Kulkarni, Jaydev Unadkat, Avesh Khan and Karn Sharma.
New Zealand: Kane Williamson (capt.), Todd Astle, Trent Boult, Colin de Grandhomme, Martin Guptill, Matt Henry, Tom Latham, Henry Nicholls, Adam Milne, Colin Munro, Glenn Phillips, Mitchell Santner, Tim Southee, Ross Taylor and George Worker.