RTA SpeedBlitz Blues squad member Mitchell Starc

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Six NSW players have been selected in the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) squad to play the annual Emerging Players tournament in Brisbane next month (August 6-20).

The AIS squad contains a mixture of First Class and underage cricketers. They will play against similar squads from India, South Africa and New Zealand in a combination of Twenty20 and 50 over matches.

NSW will be represented by RTA SpeedBlitz Blues squad members Josh Hazlewood, Moises Henriques and Mitchell Starc, as well as State underage representatives Sean Abbott, Nic Maddinson and Nathan Brain.

The Emerging Players Tournament was first held in 2005 with Karntaka, a State team from India winning the inaugural tournament. South Africa took out the series in 2006 and 2007 with New Zealand victorious in 2008 and India claiming the title in 2009. In fact the only country not to have won the series yet is Australia!

Since its inception this tournament has been used as a stepping stone for many current international players, including Adam Voges, Ben Hilfenhaus, Luke Ronchi, Shaun Marsh, Callum Ferguson (Australia), Jacob Oram, Shane Bond, Hamish Marshall, Mark Gillespie, Ross Taylor, Peter Fulton, Michael Papps (New Zealand), Neil McKenzie, Robin Peterson (South Africa) and Robin Uthappa (India).

NSW umpire Michael Kumatat has also been named on a five-man Emerging Umpires Panel for the tournament where he will have the opportunity to work alongside National Panel umpires Bob Parry and Bruce Oxenford.

Teams

Australian Institute of Sport
Peter George, Josh Hazlewood, Nicholas Buchanan, Moises Henriques, Luke Feldman, Sean Abbott, Ben Dunk, James Faulkner, James Pattinson, Mitchell Starc, Luke Pomersbach, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Ryan Carters, Glenn Maxwell, Alister McDermott, Nathan Brain, Jason Floros, Nic Maddinson, Callum Ferguson, Gursewak Singh*, Malhotra Sahib*

*MRF Pace Foundation

India
Parthiv Patel (c), Cheteshwar Pujara (vc), Shikar Dhawan, Ajinkya Rahane, Sourav Tiwary, Kedar Jadhav, Naman Ojha, Abhinav Mukund, Umesh Yadev, Jaydev Unadkat, Vinay Kumar, Dhawal Kulkarni, Jaskaran Singh, Piyush Chawla, Ravichandran Ashwin

New Zealand
Neil Broom, Jamie How, Bradley Scott, Shanan Stewart, Brent Arnel, Robert Young, Brendon Diamanti, Michael Bates, Colin de Grandhomme, Tim McIntosh, Neil Wagner, Luke Woodcock, Dean Brownlie, Nick Beard, Hamish Bennett

South Africa
Davy Jacobs (c), Pierre Joubert, Ryan Bailey, Pumelela Matshikwe, CJ DeVilliers, Daryn Smit, Dane Wilas, Basheer Walters, Reeza Hendricks, Jon-Jon Smuts, Farhaan Berhardien, Colin Ingram, Vaughn Van Jaarsveld, Aaron Phangiso, Craig Alexander