Under new coach W V Raman and new skipper Virat Kohli, the India under-19 squad is all set for their tour of South Africa.Former coach Lalchand Rajput, who is now with the senior team in Australia, had guided the colts to a successful overseas season. After series wins in England, Pakistan, New Zealand, Malaysia and Sri Lanka, the under-19 side are confident of keeping a clean slate again. They left for South Africa tonight.With most of the under-19 players having played Ranji Trophy matches for their respective states, Raman said: “The players have been performing well of late and are in good form. And it is an advantage to the side.”For Delhi, middle-order batsman Kohli, who took on the skipper’s job from Uttar Pradesh’s Tanmay Srivastav, the tour will be a tough and challenging one. He said: “The tour will be a challenge and it’s good to see that the boys are maturing at the right time and have showed good form of late.”However, three Ranji teams in the semi-finals — Uttar Pradesh, Saurashtra and Delhi — will feel the pinch as their stars are in the under-19 squad and will miss the crucial last-four stage games. They have quested the BCCI to release the players, but to no avail. Tanmay Srivastav (UP), Pradeep Sangwan and Kohli (Delhi) and Ravindra Jadeja (Saurashtra) are the ones in demand. “If it was the case of one player then we might have given it a thought. We can’t help it,” said BCCI CEO Ratnakar Shetty.
