SHARJAH // A team of the UAE's most promising young players will share the limelight with the Indian cricketers Ishant Sharma, Yusuf Pathan and Mohammed Kaif in a Twenty20 tournament this month. The Sharjah-based Young Talents Cricket Academy (YTCA) have been invited to play in a 20-over competition in Sisra in the Indian state of Haryana over the next fortnight.
The UAE team are one of three foreign sides who will travel to the event. One of the others, Lahore Lions, are likely to include the Pakistani Test players Taufeeq Umar and Naved Latif in their ranks. The JCD International Cricket League has adopted the Indian Premier League as its template, and matches will be staged at the Jan Nayak Chaudhary Devi Lal national cricket academy. Digvijay Singh,the tournament's chairman, said: "Around 2,000 budding players had given trials and we have selected 40 out of them. Nine of these 40 players are playing in this tournament."
The 16-match tournament carries with it a prize of Rs 500,000 (Dh41,120) for the winners. The YTCA, run by the former UAE seamer Shahzad Altaf, has been a prolific source of talent over the years. Six of the UAE squad which reached last month's ACC Trophy final graduated from the academy, while Altaf's son, Rameez Shahzad, is seen as the brightest prospect in the country. YTCA Squad: Rameez Shahzad (Captain), Anil Raju Adnani (Vice-captain), Harsh Chaturvedi, Umair Shaz Peshimam, Abhishek Kapoor, Prashant Gupta, Punit Mehra, Nalin Khaitan, Vivek Reji Thomas, Manish Dhakan, Shashwat Trivedi.
pradley@thenational.ae
