Allen through to phase two of ICC Americas trial

Former USA vice-captain Timroy Allen's career revival took another step forward on Monday with his inclusion, alongside 11 other players, for phase two of the ICC Americas Combine at the Indianapolis World Sports Park.

The 12 players, including four provisional selections, will take part in the second phase of the trial, between September 25 and 27, before a final 14-man squad is picked for the WICB Nagico Super50 domestic tournament in January 2016. The second phase will see players participate in two 50-over and two Twenty20 matches.

Allen captained the winning side in a 25-over trial match on Monday, taking two wickets in another sharp opening spell, following on from his impressive performances with bat and ball on Sunday.

"It's tough to describe the feeling," Allen told ESPNcricinfo after his selection. "It's a lot of guys here so you have to do something exceptional for them to actually say this guy's going to be a part of it. So I was really excited. My heart was beating really fast prior to that but after that, I kind of relaxed a little bit and you come back to a realization that more than likely you impressed a couple of the coaches."

The main group is dominated by fast bowlers with the selection of Jasdeep Singh, Jeremy Gordon and Ali Khan along with Allen. Jasdeep backed up his strong performances at the World T20 Qualifier in Ireland with another solid display. Gordon, who arrived late to the trial from Toronto, bowled a hostile spell to snare two wickets on Monday. Ali Khan, who is yet to make his international debut for USA, consistently stood out with his pace and ability to bowl yorkers.

Two batsmen and two spinners were also included in the main group. USA's Alex Amsterdam made the cut after top-scoring in both trial matches, while Anirrudh Reddy Saddi backed up a decent effort on Sunday with 36 on Monday, before retiring to give others a chance to bat.

The squad also includes left-arm spinner Danial Ahmed, who was left out of USA's squad for the Ireland tour, and legspinner Prumjot Panesar from the San Francisco Bay Area, who beat more heralded slow bowlers with his flight and accuracy.

The ICC had initially committed to naming a maximum of eight players for the second phase. However, after naming the first eight, fast bowling coach Courtney Walsh said that four more players would get an opportunity because the phase one competition was "so good, so tight and so close".

Fast bowler David Pieters and batsmen Krishneal Goel, Shiva Vashishat and Srimantha Wijeyratne were invited back as provisional selections. According to the four players, the ICC informed them that if they are able to pay their own way to come back for phase two - as all players were required to do for phase one - they would be given an opportunity to compete. Under the previously announced conditions of the trial, only the top eight players would be invited back to participate in week two, with their travel and accommodation paid for by the ICC.

"I've never been involved in something so structured and professional starting from just the way they had sports performance analysts testing our athletic abilities," Vashishat said. "They tested our skills with drills that we've never done before and quite honestly a lot of us did very bad but it was something new and speaking with Mike [Young] and working with Courtney, working with all these great coaches that we have here was a great, great experience.

"Even the people that didn't get selected, I know they're going to take all this information back and turn into better cricketers."