Bahutule to lead India 'A' against Pakistan

Mumbai Ranji Trophy captain and leg spinner Sairaj Bahutule will lead India 'A' in place of Punjab batsman Dinesh Mongia in the one-day warm-up match against Pakistan, to be played at the Visakha stadium on the outskirts of Hyderabad on March 30.

Dinesh Mongia and Railways all-rounder J P Yadav will be representing their respective teams in the Ranji Trophy final, hence they have been replaced by Hyderabad batsman A T Rayudu and Bengal's Sanjib Sanyal in the 14-member team, Hyderabad Cricket Association sources said on Saturday.

Bahutule was already in the original team named earlier.

Both the teams are expected to arrive in Hyderabad on March 29 and arrangements are in full swing to host the first international event at the newly-built stadium, HCA secretary Shivlal Yadav told reporters.

Taking cue from the massive response to the Duleep Trophy match played last month, when the stadium was packed to capacity on all three days, the HCA has also decided to have tickets for the one-day match.

"We are expecting Rs 46 lakh from gates, while a private Telugu channel which has agreed to beam the match live will be paying Rs 20 lakh," Yadav said.

The match, considered a warm-up fixture ahead of the one-day series, will provide an opportunity to youngsters to show their skills while the Pakistan players will be using it as a transit between the longer and shorter versions of the game.

Teams:

India 'A' (from): Sairaj Bahutule (captian), Shikhar Dhawan, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (WK), Robin Uthappa, Suresh Raina, Niraj Patel, Y Venugopal Rao, S Sriram, Sanjee Sanyal, A T Rayudu, Rudra Pratap Singh, Ranadeb Bose, Amit Bhandari and Ramesh Powar.

Pakistan (from): Inzamum-ul Haq (captain), Salman Butt, Mohammad Hafeez, Younis Khan (vice-captian), Yousuf Youhana, Asim Kamal, Kamran Akmal, Abdul Razzaq, Mohammad Sami, Shahid Nazir, Rana Naveed-ul Hashan, Danish Kaneria, Shahid Afridi, Rao Iftikar Anjum, Arshad Khan, Shoaib Malik.

Umpires: Rajan K Seth (Delhi) and Balwant Sharma (Udaipur).

Match observer: Sathya Mohanty (Orissa).