***Official*** Top End Series

[adharcric]

A-teams from India, Pakistan and New Zealand will tour Australia for a series of Twenty20, one-day and four-day matches.
The Top End series will take place throughout the month of July in Darwin and Cairns.

 

[adharcric]

Australia A

Brad Haddin*+, Cullen Bailey, Travis Birt, Mark Cosgrove, Dan Cullen, Brett Dorey, Ben Hilfenhaus, Brad Hodge, James Hopes, Phil Jaques, Mitchell Johnson, Chris Rogers, Shaun Tait, Shane Watson

 

[adharcric]

India A

Venugopal Rao*, Parthiv Patel+, Gautam Gambhir, Shikhar Dhawan, Robin Uthappa, Rohit Sharma, Cheteshwar Pujara, S Badrinath, TP Singh, Reetinder Sodhi, Piyush Chawla, Ravindra Jadeja, RP Singh, SS Paul, Siddharth Trivedi

 

[adharcric]

New Zealand A

Squad 1
Peter Fulton*, James Marshall, Graham Aldridge, Brendon Diamanti, Mark Gillespie, Jamie How, Michael Mason, Nathan McCullum, Peter McGlashan, Warren McSkimming, Jesse Ryder, Ross Taylor, Lou Vincent

Squad 2
Craig McMillan*, Matthew Bell, Hamish Bennett, Gareth Hopkins, Bruce Martin, Chris Martin, Kyle Mills, Rob Nicol, Mark Orchard, Michael Papps, Jeetan Patel, Mathew Sinclair, Richard Sherlock

 

[silentstriker]

Teams from Australia and India look relatively strong. I can't comment on the teams from Pakistan and NZ.

 

[James]

These would be the likely playing elevens for the two New Zealand teams I would say. Squad 1 is stronger in the batting while Squad 2 is stronger in the bowling. Squad 1 is loaded with attacking stroke makers so we could see some big scores, while the Squad 2 batsman are more defensive players (bar McMillan).

Squad 1

Jamie How
Jesse Ryder
Peter Fulton
Lou Vincent
James Marshall
Ross Taylor
Nathan McCullum
Graham Aldridge
Mark Gillespie
Michael Mason
Warren McSkimming


Squad 2

Matthew Bell
Michael Papps
Mathew Sinclair
Craig McMillan
Rob Nicol
Gareth Hopkins
Hamish Bennett
Kyle Mills
Jeetan Patel
Richard Sherlock
Chris Martin

 

[Haddin]

I am so going to every First Class Game. Not a fan of Twenty-20.

 

[age_master]

Dan Cullen and James hopes will carry the Aussie bowling attack in the OD games, Dorey should do well in the 4 dayers though. The aussie batting lineup is pretty good though, Haddin, Jaques, Cosgrove, Hopes and Hodge should all do well.

 

[brockley]

This should be in the series section can someone bump it up there,as there are only 2 series going on.
Hasn't pakistan named their squad,expect pakistan A to have a good fast bowling line up.They may be waiting on naming the pakistan team for england yet,before naming the A side.
The pakistan A side gave us(australia A) a run for our money expect them to be tough.
Dunno how the kiwi squads work which one is for the academy bash in june and which one is for the A series.
Am happy with the aussie A side tho,good to see birt,cullen bailey and bill hilfenhaus in the squad,for reward for good aussie domestic seasons.

 

[James]

Both NZ 'A' teams will play in the series, so you'll have:

Australia A
India A
Pakistan A
New Zealand A and New Zealand A 2

 

[James]

The thread will be bumped up closer to the start of the competition.

 

[Craig]

I'm pleased that the likes of Sherlock, Patel, Ryder, Taylor are there.

How good is Nathan McCullum?

 

[James]

I'm pleased that the likes of Sherlock, Patel, Ryder, Taylor are there.

How good is Nathan McCullum?

Handy off-spinner who's a good lower order batsman. Bruce Martin is probably the better spinner though.

 

[adharcric]

The thread will be bumped up closer to the start of the competition.

Thanks. I guess one of us will have to post regularly to keep it afloat till then.

 

[adharcric]

This should be in the series section can someone bump it up there,as there are only 2 series going on.
Hasn't pakistan named their squad,expect pakistan A to have a good fast bowling line up.They may be waiting on naming the pakistan team for england yet,before naming the A side.

Pakistan A Probables
Misbah-ul-Haq, Yasir Hameed, Hasan Raza, Rafatullah Mohmand, Mohammad Hafeez, Shahid Yousuf, Shahzad Malik, Fawad Alam, Naved Latif, Yasir Arafat, Mohammad Salman, Amin-ur-Rehman, Wasim Khan, Abdul Rehman, Tahir Khan, Mohammad Irshad, Asad Ali, Anwar Ali, Akhtar Ayub, Jamshed Ahmed, Najaf Shah, Asif Hussain, Mansoor Amjad, Mohammad Khalil, Rizwan Akbar, Samiullah Niazi, Saeed Anwar Jr, Imran Tahir and Naumanullah

I only know about half of these guys, would someone care to provide some details ...

 

[Matt79]

New Zealand A and New Zealand A 2

Wouldn't that make one team New Zealand B? Or are they both "=New Zealand B"?

 

[Craig]

Pakistan A Probables
Misbah-ul-Haq, Yasir Hameed, Hasan Raza, Rafatullah Mohmand, Mohammad Hafeez, Shahid Yousuf, Shahzad Malik, Fawad Alam, Naved Latif, Yasir Arafat, Mohammad Salman, Amin-ur-Rehman, Wasim Khan, Abdul Rehman, Tahir Khan, Mohammad Irshad, Asad Ali, Anwar Ali, Akhtar Ayub, Jamshed Ahmed, Najaf Shah, Asif Hussain, Mansoor Amjad, Mohammad Khalil, Rizwan Akbar, Samiullah Niazi, Saeed Anwar Jr, Imran Tahir and Naumanullah

I only know about half of these guys, would someone care to provide some details ...

Wasn't Naumanullah picked in the squad to play England in the 3rd Test at Karachi but never played?

 

[Xuhaib]

Pakistan A Probables
Misbah-ul-Haq, Yasir Hameed, Hasan Raza, Rafatullah Mohmand, Mohammad Hafeez, Shahid Yousuf, Shahzad Malik, Fawad Alam, Naved Latif, Yasir Arafat, Mohammad Salman, Amin-ur-Rehman, Wasim Khan, Abdul Rehman, Tahir Khan, Mohammad Irshad, Asad Ali, Anwar Ali, Akhtar Ayub, Jamshed Ahmed, Najaf Shah, Asif Hussain, Mansoor Amjad, Mohammad Khalil, Rizwan Akbar, Samiullah Niazi, Saeed Anwar Jr, Imran Tahir and Naumanullah

I only know about half of these guys, would someone care to provide some details ...

A few of these guys are quite well known.

Shahid Yousuf is considered the best batting prodigy in the country. Hassan Raza is your Sachin for A-team competitions .

Guys like Hafeez, Arafat and Latif have a little bit of international expeirence while Najaf Shah, Asif Hussain, Tahir Khan, Wasim Khan have been good consistent performers on the domestic circut for the past few years.

The two names to watch out for are Anwar Ali and Jamshed Ahmed .Both were stars at the U-19 world cup especially Jamshed Ahmed aged 17 he is considered the closest thing to Wasim Akram. At this young age he is bowling in late 80's with some real awkward lift.

 

[adharcric]

You spoke mostly about the players I already knew a little about, but thanks anyways Xuhaib.

These are the guys I'd take for sure:

Misbah-ul-Haq, Yasir Hameed, Hasan Raza, Mohammad Hafeez, Shahid Yousuf, Yasir Arafat, Mohammad Irshad, Anwar Ali, Jamshed Ahmed, Mansoor Amjad, Samiullah Niazi

That leaves room for a wicketkeeper, two batsmen and a spinner.

 

[Xuhaib]

Mohd Salman is a good wicket keeper batsman.Another decent prospect is Saeed Anwar jnr who is a left-handed opening batsman and a usefull left-arm spinner.