With Dravid as mentor, Colts to test their mettle in tri-series before U-19 World Cup

KOLKATA: With the Under-19 World Cup scheduled in Bangladesh in January, it's time for India's GenNext to get ready for the greatest challenge. The road to World Cup begins in Kolkata where India, Bangladesh and Afghanistan will lock horns in a tri-series beginning at the Jadavpur University's Salt Lake campus ground on Friday. The One-day series will be held in a round-robin format with each team playing the other twice with the top two sides locking horns in the final on November 29.
However, more than winning the tournament, the teams look more eager to set their house in order before the World Cup. India's fielding coach Abhay Sharma said that they are planning to give all the 20 boys in the squad a game. "Sometimes you have to lose a war to win the battle," he said indicating that the real focus is on the World Cup. India might also rotate the captaincy between Ricky Bhui and Virat Singh.
Ricky played a captain's knock of 142 off just 117 balls against India Green to guide India Blue to the title in the inaugural edition of the U-19 Challenger Series in Pune last month.
He also scored his maiden first-class century for Andhra in the Ranji Trophy earlier this season too against Mumbai.
Jharkhand left-hander Virat Singh, who recently led India Green in the Challenger series, too has been scoring heavily in domestic cricket.
The squad also boasts promising Delhi wicketkeeper and left-handed batsman Rishabh Pant, who led India Red, and medium pacers Avesh Khan (Madhya Pradesh) and Shubham Mavi (Uttar Pradesh) and batsmen Amandeep Khare and Anmolpreet Singh of Punjab.
The focus will also be on the promising Sarfaraz Khan as the hosts open their campaign on Friday against Bangladesh colts who have done well on the international circuit in recent times. They defeated Sri Lanka 3-2 in Lanka, beat South Africa 5-2 in South Africa and 6-1 at home and thrashed Zimbabwe 4-0 in Bangladesh earlier this month.
Indian colts, on the other hand, lack international exposure, but in former India skipper Rahul Dravid they have someone who has loads of experience. "It's a total learning process for us as he adds value to every aspect of our game," skipper Bhui said about Dravid's contribution.
Sharma too said that Rahul has some definite vision for these boys and is working hard on that."He is a down-to-earth person and gives individual importance to each player," Sharma added.