A day after completing his Ranji Trophy assignment for Uttar Pradesh, Rinku Singh has been drafted into the India ‘A’ squad, which will play their second four-day match against England Lions, starting from Wednesday.

“The Men’s Selection Committee has added Rinku Singh to India ‘A’ squad for the second four-day match against England Lions to be played in Ahmedabad from January 24,” the board said.

Rinku was recently with the India Test squad in South Africa as a reserve player. He has played 43 first-class matches so far, scoring 3099 runs at an average of 58.47. Earlier, Rinku was in the India A squad for the third four-day game against Lions.

Rinku was also part of the India A squad in South Africa as well and stepped out in the field as a substitute in the Indian dugout during the first Test in Centurion.

Rinku as Kohli’s replacement?

With the board yet to name a replacement for Virat Kohli, who will miss out the first two Tests due to personal reasons, the selectors might be tempted to promote the young southpaw into the Test side against England. The Aligarh lad is in prime form in T20I cricket, and the selectors could be tempted to balance the Indian line-up by deploying the left-hander for the middle order slot.

While there are speculations about heavyweight India ‘A’ performers — Rajat Patidar of Madhya Pradesh and Sarfaraz Khan of Mumbai as frontrunners to replace Kohli, Rinku could be the surprise selection in the squad.

However, going by his current form, MP’s Patidar is fresh from scoring 151 for India A in the game against the England Lions, and just before that he had hit 111 in a two-day warm-up fixture against the same opponents. Patidar was also part of the Test squad against the South Africans.

Mumbai batter and a domestic run-machine Sarfaraz Khan, who has been waiting for an India call-up for long, could also be in the running. Also Test veteran Cheteshwar Pujara, whose last appearance in the Indian Test jersey was at the World Test Championship last year, has been overlooked by the national selectors for the past eight-nine months due to a prolonged slump in his form.

However, Saurashtra batting star has started this year’s Ranji Trophy season with an unbeaten double-century against Jharkhand before hitting three scores in the 40s and a half-century in his next two games, signalling his return to form.

India ‘A’ squad for the 2nd multi-day match: Abhimanyu Easwaran (Captain), Sai Sudharsan, Rajat Patidar, Sarfaraz Khan, Tilak Varma, Kumar Kushagra, Washington Sundar, Sourabh Kumar, Arshdeep Singh, Tushar Deshpande, Vidwath Kaverappa, Upendra Yadav, Akash Deep, Yash Dayal, and Rinku Singh