Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and Ayush Mhatre

The Junior Cricket Committee has named 17-year-old Mumbai opener Ayush Mhatre captain of the India U-19 team for the upcoming tour of England.The tour comprises a 50-over warm-up match, followed by a five-match Youth One-Day series and two multi-day matches against England U-19.The 16-member squad also includes 14-year-old Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, who has lit up the Indian Premier League (IPL) with his swashbuckling batting.In seven outings for the Rajasthan Royals, Sooryavanshi has scored 252 runs with a strike rate of 206.56.Sooryavanshi, who only turned 14 last month and was signed at last year’s auction for Rs 1.1 crore, became the youngest player to feature in the IPL earlier in April and made an immediate impact by hitting his first ball for six on his debut. Since then, the 14-year-old prodigy has smoked a 35-ball century, a 15-ball 40, followed by a matured 33-ball 57 in Royals’ six-wicket win over Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in New Delhi.Meanwhile, Mhatre, too, has had an impressive season. In six innings for CSK, Mhatre has amassed 206 runs, including a 48-ball 94 against Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in a losing cause.

At the start of the tournament, neither Mhatre nor Sooryavanshi were in contention to play. They got their chances courtesy of injuries to their respective captains. Fourteen-year-old Sooryavanshi got the chance only because Rajasthan Royals’ skipper Sanju Samson got injured. Mhatre, 17, was roped in by CSK in place of the injured Ruturaj Gaikwad.Who’s that IPL player?India U19 Squad: Ayush Mhatre (Captain), Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Vihaan Malhotra, Maulyarajsinh Chavda, Rahul Kumar, Abhigyan Kundu (Vice-Captain & WK), Harvansh Singh (WK), R S Ambrish, Kanishk Chouhan, Khilan Patel, Henil Patel, Yudhajit Guha, Pranav Raghavendra, Mohammed Enaan, Aditya Rana, Anmoljeet SinghStandby Players: Naman Pushpak, D Deepesh, Vedant Trivedi, Vikalp Tiwari, Alankrith Rapole (WK)ScheduleJune 24: 50-over warm-up match (Loughborough University)June 27: 1st ODI (Hove)June 30: 2nd ODI (Northampton)July 2: 3rd ODI (Northampton)July 5: 4th ODI (Worcester)July 7: 5th ODI (Worcester)July 12-15: 1st Multi-Day (Beckenham)July 20-23: 2nd Multi-Day (Chelmsford)