Lincoln: Pacers Jasprit Bumrah and Prasidh Krishna along with veteran all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja will get valuable preparation time ahead of the two-Test series when a star-studded India A face an injury-ravaged New Zealand A in the third and final four-day game beginning here on Saturday.
Bumrah, who last played in the Asian Games final on October 3, has been preserved only for the red-ball leg of the New Zealand tour.
As part of workload management, he was not picked for the ongoing five-match ODI series against New Zealand.
With the first Test in Wellington from November 19, Bumrah would be looking to make the most of his time in the middle against New Zealand A.
The preparation for the two-Test series has been extensive with a majority of India’s Test players getting to play the A series and acclimatise to the windy and cold conditions in this part of the world.
Having fully recovered from a hamstring injury, Prasidh too has been kept for the Test challenge. His last outing was the ODI against the West Indies in Guwahati on September 30.
Jadeja arrived in New Zealand after playing two Ranji Trophy games in which he took seven wickets and scored a hundred for Saurashtra.
Having lost his place in the ODI team, Jadeja will look to carry his Ranji Trophy form forward and make all-round impact in the four-day game.
The first two games of the series ended in draws.
Devdutt Padikkal and Dhruv Jurel have been among the leading run-scorers in the series. Yashasvi Jaiswal returned to form with a morale-boosting unbeaten 155 in the previous game at the Hagley Oval.
Released from the ODI squad after the opener, all-rounder Nitish Reddy is also expected to get some game time with the red ball.
The pitches eased out for batting in the previous two games.
If India A bat first, they will need to tackle challenging day one conditions here. In the series-opener, India A were bowled out for 113 in the first innings before they amassed 516 runs in the second essay.
From New Zealand A’s point of view, they would be missing the services of in-form pacers Simon Keene and Fraser Sheat.
Keene suffered a grade two left hamstring tear and Sheat injured his left side during the previous matches.
Squads:
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New Zealand: Adi Ashok, Matt Boyle, Max Chu (WK), Danru Ferns, Dean Foxcroft, Zak Gibson, Curtis Heaphy, Rhys Mariu, Jarrod McKay, Cam Paul, Dale Phillips, Brett Randell, Tim Robinson.
India A: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sai Sudharsan, Devdutt Padikkal, Yash Rathod, R. Smaran, Dhruv Jurel [C] [WK], Washington Sundar, Akash Deep, Shikhar Mohan, Mukesh Choudhary, Mukesh Kumar, Manav Suthar, Kumar Kushagra [WK], Tilak Varma, Jasprit Bumrah, Prasidh Krishna, Ravindra Jadeja.
