Indian news round-up

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) on Monday announced the England Under-19 squad for the forthcoming six-week long Indian tour slated to begin on December 27. The official ECB press release said that England are slated to play three four-day `Tests' and three One- Day Internationals against the India Under-19 team. The full itinerary of the tour will be issued shortly.

The 15-member squad features 10 players from the team which took on the Sri Lankan Under-19 team in the summer apart from five newcomers in Gordon Muchall, Andrew McGarry, Robert Ferley, Kyle Hogg and Arul Suppiah. The England Under-19 team last toured India in 1992-93 under the captaincy of Michael Vaughan. England drew the three-match `Test' series 1-1, but lost the one-day series 0-3.

Ian Bell - Warwickshire (captain), Mark Wallace - Glamorgan (wicketkeeper), Nicky Peng - Durham, Kadeer Ali - Worcestershire, Gary Pratt - Durham, Monty Panesar - Northamptonshire, Ian Pattison - Durham, John Sadler - Yorkshire, Justin Bishop - Essex, Chris Tremlett - Hampshire, Gordon Muchall - Durham, Andrew McGarry - Essex, Robert Ferley - Kent, Kyle Hogg - Lancashire and Arul Suppiah - Somerset. Manager: Tim Tremlett. Coach: Tim Boon. Physiotherapist: Kirk Russell. Physiologist: Mark Simpson.

The Karnataka State Cricket Association on Saturday announced a 15-member State Under-19 squad for the first two matches of the Cooch-Behar Trophy tournament to be played against Andhra from September 20 to 22 at Vishakapatanam and against Tamil Nadu from September 26 to 28 at Chennai respectively. Likewise the Kerala Cricket Association has also announced its Under-19 team for the tournament.

C Raghu and Vipin Lal are to lead the Karnataka and Kerala sides respectively. Former Indian Test cricketer Raghuram Bhatt has been named the coach of the Karnataka side while Maheshwar Singh will be the coach for the Kerala team.

C Raghu (captain), B Chipli, DV Krishna, HTS Rao, BMV Uthappa (wicketkeeper), SS Kumar, M Dharmichand, SV Lazarus, G Sendhilkumar, DA Chougle, C Anand, AK Bafna, STR Binny, KV Bhat and NT Pinto. Coach: Raghuram Bhat, Manager: GNR Maanay.

S Santh, S Sooraj, TA Yousaf, R Kapil, S Mithun, K Mahesh, PM Fajar, M Vipin Lal (captain), MM Nathani (wicketkeeper), NJ John, NK Aneesh, R Jerrin and RP Sujith. Coach Maheshwar Singh. Stand Byes : KJ Rakesh, A Purushottaman, V Raifi, AC Antony, J Punnoose and KT Prajith Kumar.

Pankaj Dharmani and Vikram Rathour will lead the Punjab Cricket Association Colts and the Punjab Cricket Club teams in the JP Atray Memorial cricket tournament scheduled to be held at the PCA stadium in Mohali from September 24 to October 1.

The seventh edition of the tournament, which has so far been held annually, has been named in the memory of JP Atray, former additional Director-General of Police (Haryana) and carries a cash award of Rs one lakh.

PCA Colts: Pankaj Dharmani (captain), Anil Kakria, Sanjay Kumar, Vivek Mahajan, Sanjay Dhull, Vikramjit, Bautam Mandora, Sandeep Sanwal, Vineet, Sanjay Mahajan, Rakesh SAini, Ishan Malhotra, Ankur Kakkar, Gaganinder Singh and SP Singh.

Punjab Cricket Club: Vikram Rathour (captain), Ravneet Ricky, Yuvraj Singh, Manish Sharma, Ankur Sondhi, Dinesh Mongia, Reetinder Sodhi, Harminder Jagnu, Navdeep Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Gagandeep Singh, Amit Uniyal, Sharandeep Singh. Binwant Singh and Rajan Singh.