The unit is working in tandem with the coaching staff which features Hrishikesh Kanitkar, Sunil Joshi and L. Balaji, all part of the BCCI’s Centre of Excellence. | Photo Credit: PTI

There has been no extended holiday for the bulk of India’s A team. Just a week after a hectic 2026 edition of the Indian Premier League concluded, the players got on a flight to Sri Lanka for a tri-series, also featuring Afghanistan.

A couple of days after this ends, captain Tilak Verma and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi will jet off to Ireland and England for another gruelling white-ball tour with India’s senior men’s team.

The Indian think tank’s thought process is clear: players need to work on the longer format after several months of T20 cricket, before they head to the United Kingdom.

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The unit is working in tandem with the coaching staff which features Hrishikesh Kanitkar, Sunil Joshi and L. Balaji, all part of the BCCI’s Centre of Excellence.

“We are all following what the senior team is looking at. And this (A team) is a feeder (to the senior team). We need to ensure that they (the India players) get enough game time, they get enough practice time, they get enough upskillment. We need to get their skills developed because of the volume of the game,” Joshi told  Sportstar.

There were rain interruptions at the Rangiri Stadium on Saturday but that did not stop India A from having a long session. Tilak, and later Sooryavanshi, spent considerable time in the nets, joined by Priyansh Arya and Prabhsimran Singh.

While Kanitkar was working with the batters, Balaji and Joshi were seen having individual sessions with the fast bowlers and spinners respectively.

Joshi, a former India spinner and ex-national selector, added, “It is important for them to play this longer format of the game, considering that next year is the ODI World Cup. And the more they get to play the 50-over format, they will get used to the longer duration of stay in the middle…

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“They will realise that it’s a 50-over game. It’s no more a 20-over game which is going to finish in 90 minutes. This is going to take three and a half hours a side so they will also start getting the hang of staying on the ground for a longer period of time,” Joshi said.

For bowlers, it will be a different challenge, though.

“In T20s, there’s only one spell but here you can bowl multiple spells. So you need to get organised in terms of how you’re going to get your spell in the powerplay, middle overs and across the 10 overs. So that’s more or less the communication from the team management,” Joshi added.

India A began the tournament as one of the favourites but has endured a mixed campaign so far. It escaped with a narrow victory over Sri Lanka A in the opener before suffering a surprise defeat to Afghanistan A in a rain-affected contest, leaving its path to the final far less straightforward than expected.

In unfamiliar conditions, even the spinners struggled. But Joshi backed them, saying: “It’s a young spin attack, even though they have played a decent amount of first-class cricket. They’ll only get better and the basics need to be sharpened…

“They are just coming out of the T20 format. Since this is a longer format, they need to focus more on their stock balls, hit the hard lengths and stay disciplined. One-day cricket is a longer game, and they need to assess the situation and play smart cricket,” Joshi explained.

India A will take on Sri Lanka A on Monday, followed by Afghanistan A on Wednesday, looking to keep its chances of reaching the final alive.

Published on Jun 13, 2026