8 cricketers from Lucknow in UP’s men and women teams
LUCKNOW: As many as eight cricketers, including four women’s from Lucknow have made it to the two teams of Uttar Pradesh for the forthcoming Under-19 Vinoo Mankad One-Day Trophy and Women’s One-Day Trophy.
Ajai Singh, Vipraj Nigam, Ali Zafar Mosin and Naman Tiwari have been picked up for the Vinoo Mankad Trophy, starting September 28 at Mohali, whereas Lucknow’s Sonali Singh has named skipper for the Women’s One-Day Trophy, which is also starting on September 28 at Rajkot.
Other three in the women’s team from Lucknow are: Tanu Singh, Sandya Chhetri and Aroma Tyagi.
Unlike in the past, Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association on Sunday announced its 24-member team on its website for the Mankad Trophy, but chose to send the women’s team through a WhatsApp message.
Ghaziabad’s Aradhaya Yadav will lead the men’s side. Other members of the team are: Bhaskar Bhardwaj, Siddharth Yadav, Swastik Chikara, Kartik Goyal, Ishu Sharma, Vijay Kumar, Satyam Chauhan, Damandeep Singh, Nirdesh Basoya, Ghanshyam Upadhyay, Arpit Sahu, Kamil Khan, Arnav Baliyan, Shivam Gautam, Ansh Tiwari, Vasu Vats, Rishabh Rajput, Prabhav Kumar and Abhishek Tomar.
Defending champions Uttar Pradesh will begin their Elite Group A campaign with match against Odisha on September 28, followed by matches against Chhatisgarh on September 29, against Bihar on October 1, against Andhra on October 2 and against Delhi on October 4.
This year’s Vinoo Mankad Trophy holds a lot of importance as performance of individuals would be counted during the selection of the Indian squad for the next year’s Under-19 World Cup in West Indies.
The selection of four players from state capital in the UP team is something big for Lucknow cricket, which has been struggling for its alleged politicking since long.
All three selectors, including Piyush Pandey, Anurag Srivastava, Mukesh Agarwal and an assistant Rohit Yadav did their best to pick the talented ones, besides conducting their matches before the final selections at Kanpur.
“The selection process was done in a very transparent and clean environment,” said Pandey, who happens to be the co-ordinator of selectors.
“It’s a new beginning to the Lucknow cricket and we hope that many more players from the state capita would be making to the various state teams in the domestic season this time,” he added.
He, however, said that things were falling in place in Lucknow cricket.
In the Under-19 Women’s One Day Trophy, Uttar Pradesh has been clubbed with Mumbai, Hyderabad, Assam, Gujarat and Vidarbha in Elite Group A.
The other members of the team are: Vernika, Sudha Shukla, Garima Yadav, Kshama Singh, Babita Yadav, Tanu Kesarwani, Riya Singh, Archana Devi, Rama Kushwaha, Pooja Rajput, Tripti Singh, Nishi Kashyap, Sonam Yadav, Shubhi N Sharma, Disha Singh, Parshavi Chopra, Falak Naaz, Shikha Shalo and Bhumi Singh.