The USA U19 Reds and Blues wrapped up their 10-day national selection training camp on Sunday in northern California, with each side claiming victories during the final weekend. 

Image credit: Peter Della Penna

By Peter Della Penna in San Jose (Twitter @PeterDellaPenna)
 
The USA U19 Reds came out on top in the final battle of the intrasquad matches against the USA U19 Blues, but the Blues saved face in the final match of the weekend with a victory over an MiLC Bay Area U21 Select squad to wrap up the USA Cricket Men’s U19 selection trials at Morgan Hill Outdoor Sports Center on June 19 and 20.
 
Saturday’s intrasquad match saw the Blues bowled out for 135 in 43.4 overs after being sent in at the toss as the Reds eventually won by six wickets with 11.2 overs to spare. Laksh Parikh and Abhiram Bolisetty each took a wicket during their new ball spells. Parikh had Mohamed Shaw playing down the wrong line to be lbw for a third-ball duck in the first over before Bolisetty had Rohan Phadke edging behind for 11 in the sixth over to make it 14 for 2.
 
Rohan Posanipally came on after the Powerplay and had Rehman Dar chopping onto his stumps for 11, the first wicket in a tremendous performance that saw him claim 4 for 10 in just six overs. After the spin trio of Elton Tucker Jr, Tejas Visal and Skanda Rohit Sharma each claimed a scalp, Rishi Ramesh’s medium pace dislodged Yasir Mohammad chasing a wider delivery for an edge behind. Posanipally returned for a second spell and quickly removed the last three batsmen, including the key scalp of Ritwik Behera, edging behind an attempted drive for 13. Gautham Ravindran was then clean bowled for a golden duck before Soorya Selvakumar edged a bouncer to Ishan Sharma at slip for Posanipally’s fourth to end the innings.
 
The only bright spot in the innings for the Blues was a 45-run stand between captain Ali Sheikh and wicketkeeper Mihir Cherukupalli. The Southwest zone teammates scored 30 and 28 respectively before Cherukupalli was stumped overstretching to Visal’s legspin while Sheikh cut Skanda to point where Sai Mukkamalla took a sharp diving catch. While Posanipally had the best figures for Reds, Bolisetty ended with the most economical spell of the day returning 1 for 7 in five overs with two maidens.
 
In the chase, Yasir Mohammad claimed the wickets of Mukkamalla and Skanda to end with 2 for 27 in eight overs, but it wasn’t enough to stem the tide of the Reds batting lineup. Mukkamalla (23), Kanish Bhalla (22) and Ramesh (26) all made nuggety contributions before Rahul Jariwala took the Reds across the line with an impressive 47 not out off 55 balls including five fours and a six.
 
On Sunday, the Blues bounced back with a 53-run win over the MiLC Bay Area U21 Select squad.  On what was the best batting pitch of the week, USA U19 Blues posted the only score above 200 during the entire camp, ending on 253 for 7 after choosing to bat first at the toss.
 
Rehman Dar overcame his struggles from earlier in the camp by top-scoring with 83 off 106 balls, the second highest individual score from anyone at the camp behind Ritwik Behera’s century in the middle of the week. Dar made the most of a missed stumping chance on 44 off left-arm spinner Josh Dascombe, bringing up his half-century a short time later off 70 balls by hitting Dascombe for a straight six.
 
Dar had an 84-run opening stand with Phadke (34) before a 49-run second-wicket partnership with Shaw (25). After a flurry of wickets in the middle overs culminating in Dar being given lbw to medium pacer Harish Kakani at the end of the 38^th, Behera and Gautham Ravindran rallied momentum back to the Blues with a 49-run partnership spanning the next 10 overs. Behera made 32 off 36 balls while Ravindran ended unbeaten on 25 off 39 balls. Abhiram Valisammagari also played a valuable cameo with 14 not out off 6 balls to push the Blues past the 250 mark.
 
The Blues looked to be in deep trouble early in the reply staring in the face of a fiery opening stand between Shamith Pasula and Samson Bhatti, who raced to 74 for 0 off eight overs. But Sheikh finally halted the stand at 98, getting Bhatti for 31. Pasula fell leg before to Ajay Immadi five over later for 48 and the wheels continued to come off thereafter. The left-right spin combo of Sheikh (3 for 25 in eight) and Immadi (3 for 35 in 10) continued to work through the middle order before Mohammad (2 for 27 in 10), Behera (1 for 33 in eight) and Ravindran (1 for 2 in 1.1) all chipped in later on as spinners claimed all 10 wickets in the end for the Blues. MiLC Bay Area U21 were eventually bowled out for 200 in 46.1 overs.
 
USA Cricket is expected to name a 14-man squad at some point in the next month before the scheduled start of the ICC Americas U19 World Cup Qualifier Regional Final, which had been announced last December to be hosted by USA from August 18-25.