England Under-19 side to commence Indian tour on December 31

There is no international cricket for the Indian team for about two more months till the first Test against the visiting Australians. But cricket will continue to hold one's attention during that time. The Deodhar Trophy got over last week and the Duleep Trophy will be played for a month from January 4. This will be followed by the Wills Trophy one day tournament. In the meantime, the Ranji Trophy league stage is nearing completion and the knock out matches will commence from March 8.

But there will also be an international flavour during the same period and this will be provided by the visit of the England under-19 that is scheduled to be play three four day `Tests', three one day games and three three day matches during their month and a half tour of India.

The English team first take on the West Zone in their tour opener at Pune from December 31 to January 2. They then play the Rest of India under-19 team at Mumbai from January 4 to 6.

Kashinath Khadkikar of Maharashtra and Vinayak Mane of Mumbai were on Wednesday named as captains of the Rest of India team and West Zone under-19 teams respectively.

The three `Tests' will be played at Mumbai (January 9-12), Chennai (January 20-23) and Hyderabad (January 27-30) and three one-dayers at Rajkot (February 4), Ahmedabad (February 6) and Baroda (February 8) Apart from the three threeday games (the third match will be played at Chennai from January 15-17) they will have a one-day practice match at Rajkot on Feb 2.

Rest of India team: Kashinath Khadkikar (capt) and Kiran Adhav (both Maharashtra), Arindam Das and Subhomoy Das (both Bengal), Mulewa Dharmichand and Steve Lazarus (both Karnataka), Mohnish Mishra, Maninder Singh and OP Yadav (all Madhya Pradesh), Gaganinder Singh and Gagandeep Singh (both Punjab), Parthiv Patel (Gujarat), Y Rao (Andhra), Tushar Shah (Tripura) and Surendra Singh (Railways).

West Zone team: Vinayak Mane (capt), Bhavin Thakkar, Vinit Indulkar and Uday Karkera (all Mumbai), Rohan Dharvat, Kashinath Khadkikar, Charu Kulkarni and Kiran Adhav (all Maharashtra), Parthiv Patel, Sahil Yadav and Siddarth Trivedi (all Gujarat), Vimal Joshi, Irfan Pathan and Hitshu Bachani (all Baroda), Jaydev Shah (Saurashtra).

Coach: Vilas Godbole of Mumbai (both teams).

Meanwhile, the 15-member England team, which is being led by Ian Bell of Warwickshire, is expected to land in India on Wednesday night to commence their 45-day tour.

The team, coached by Tim Boon, has four players from Durham, two from Essex and a player each from Worcestershire, Kent, Lancashire, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, Northamptonshire, Hampshire and Glamorgan, apart from the skipper, according to a BCCI release.

The team: Ian Bell (Capt-Warwickshire), Kadeer Ali (Worcestershire), Justin Bishop and Andrew Mcgarry (both Essex), Robert Ferley (Kent), Kyle Hogg (Lancashire), Nadeem Malik (Nottinghamshire), Gordon Muchall, Ian Pattison, Nicky Peng and Gary Pratt (all Durham), Monty Panesar (Northamptonshire), John Sadler (Yorkshire), Chris Tremlett (Hampshire) and Mark Wallace (Glamorgan). Coach: Tim Boon. Tour Manager: Tim Tramlett. Physiotherapist: Kirk Russell. Physiologist: Mark Simpson.