Wriddhiman Saha, Kuldeep Yadav and Umesh Yadav will slot back in with the India A squad following their tour of the Caribbean with the national side. Saha will lead in the second four-day fixture against South Africa A in Mysore.
Shubman Gill will lead in the first four-dayer starting on September 10 in Wayanad. The game will also feature the likes of Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ammolpreet Singh, K Gowtham, Shahbaz Nadeem and Mohammed Siraj, all of whom were part of the India A squad that toured the West Indies last month.
Vijay Shankar, who was ruled out of the ongoing one-day series because of a thumb injury, has also been included subject to clearance from the medical team. Ruturaj, who will feature in the first four-dayer, was part of only the limited-overs squad in the West Indies and is currently part of the India A one-day team playing South Africa A in Thiruvananthapuram.
The selection committee picked two different squads as a number of India A regulars like Priyank Panchal and Abhimanyu Easwaran will be involved in the Duleep Trophy final in Bengaluru starting on September 4.
Ishan Kishan, who is currently part of the India A one-day team, will rejoin India Red for that Duleep Trophy final, while Rahul Chahar will be replaced by Mayank Markande in the India Green side. Kishan’s inclusion in this game is perhaps a sign of the selectors perhaps being satisfied with his white-ball credentials and wanting to give him enough exposure in the red-ball format.
Meanwhile, Karun Nair was rewarded for his Duleep Trophy form with a return to the India A fold for the first time since November last year. Nair made scores of 99, 166 not out and 90 in his first two first-class outings this season. Nair is on a comeback trail of sorts after being controversially left out of the India Test squad midway through the England tour last year.
With South Africa due to tour India for a full tour, the four-dayers are seen as a shadow tour for a number of their Test aspirants like Aiden Markram, Temba Bavuma, Theunis de Bruyn, Zubayr Hamza, Keshav Maharaj, Senuran Muthusamy and Anrich Nortje.
India A squad for 1st four-dayer: Shubman Gill (capt), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Anmolpreet Singh, Ricky Bhui, Ankeet Bawne, KS Bharat (wk), K Gowtham, Shahbaz Nadeem, Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Siraj, Tushar Deshpande, Shivam Dube, Vijay Shankar
India A squad for 2nd four-dayer: Priyank Panchal, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Shubman Gill, Anmolpreet Singh, Karun Nair, Wriddhiman Saha (Capt, wk), K Gowtham, Kuldeep Yadav, Shahbaz Nadeem, Vijay Shankar, Shivam Dube, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Avesh Khan