Jadeja to lead RCA XI in practice match

Ajay Jadeja, the former Indian batsman who was banned by the Board of Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) following an inquiry into matchfixing, has been named as the captain of the Rajasthan Cricket Association President's XI to take on England in a warm-up one-day game at Jaipur on March 25. This will be his first game against international opposition after his ban was lifted.

Jadeja, 35, represented India in 15 Tests and 196 ODIs before he, along with three others, was handed a five-year ban following damaging, though inconclusive, findings in a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry on match-fixing. The ban was overturned by a Delhi High Court in January 2003 and he represented Delhi in the Ranji Trophy in the next season. Currently, Jadeja captains the Rajasthan state side and recently led them to the final of the Plate Group championship.

The seventeen-member squad has as many as eight players with international experience, including Gautam Gambhir, Suresh Raina, Ramesh Powar and Rudra Pratap Singh, who played in the ODIs against Pakistan. The warm-up game will precede seven one-day internationals from March 28 to April 15 at Delhi, Faridabad, Goa, Kochi, Guwahati, Jamshedpur and Indore.

RCA President's XI Ajay Jadeja (capt), Gagan Khoda, Gautam Gambhir, Venugopal Rao, Suresh Raina, Parthiv Patel (wk), Vikram Rajvir Singh, Rudra Pratap Singh, Ramesh Powar, Rohit Sharma, Piyush Chawla, Vidyut Sivaramakrishnan, Pankaj Singh, Sanjay Gill, Dishant Yagnik (wk), Jaidev Shah, Vikrant Yadav.