Jitesh Sharma has been named captain of the India A squad for the upcoming Asian Cricket Council (ACC) Rising Stars Asia Cup, earlier the Emerging Teams tournament, to be played in Doha from November 14 to 23. Naman Dhir has been named his deputy

The squad for the T20 tournament wears a strong look with a lot of players who have done well at the IPL over the years: Ramandeep Singh, Abishek Porel, Suyash Sharma, Ashutosh Sharma, Nehal Wadhera and Dhir, as well as Priyansh Arya and Vaibhav Suryavanshi, who made their IPL debuts in 2025. Them aside, there are the likes of Harsh Dubey, Suryansh Shedge, Yash Thakur, Gurjanpreet Singh, Vijaykumar Vyshak and Yudhvir Singh, all prominent performers in the Indian domestic circuit. Jitesh was the only one among them to play internationally recently, at the T20I series in Australia in October-November.

Pakistan A and Oman will kick off the tournament with the showpiece India A vs Pakistan A match slotted for November 16. The teams are divided into two groups: Group A has Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Hong Kong and Sri Lanka, while Group B has India, Oman, Pakistan and UAE.

ACC Rising Stars tournament schedule

Nov 14 – Oman vs Pak; Ind vs UAE

Nov 15 – Ban vs HK; Afg vs SL

Nov 16 – Oman vs UAE; Ind vs Pak

Nov 17 – HK vs SL; Afg vs Ban

Nov 18 – Pak vs UAE; Ind vs Oman

Nov 19 – Afg vs HK; Ban vs SL

Nov 21 – Semi-finals: A1 vs B2; B1 vs A2

Nov 23 – Final

This will be the first cricketing exchange between the men’s teams of India and Pakistan since the senior Asia Cup in September, though the senior women’s teams faced off at the ODI World Cup earlier this month.

When the men played the Asia Cup, there were no handshakes or any other form of greetings between the players of the two countries, and it ended with India, the tournament champions, leaving Dubai without the trophy. It emerged that they had decided not to receive the trophy from the ACC chief, Mohsin Naqvi, who is also a parliamentarian in Pakistan and the chairman of the PCB. An ACC official removed the trophy from the dais after a long delay once it became clear that the victors would not be coming up to collect it.

India A squad for Rising Stars Asia Cup T20 tournament

Priyansh Arya, Vaibhav Suryavanshi, Nehal Wadhera, Naman Dhir (vice-capt), Suryansh Shedge, Jitesh Sharma (capt, wk), Ramandeep Singh, Harsh Dubey, Ashutosh Sharma, Yash Thakur, Gurjapneet Singh, Vijay Kumar Vyshak, Yudhvir Singh, Abishek Porel (wk), Suyash Sharma
Stand-by players: Gurnoor Brar, Kumar Kushagra, Tanush Kotian, Sameer Rizvi, Shaik Rasheed