Aaryavir Sehwag gets his first India call-up, and Anvay Dravid keeps the gloves for Rajkot

Two India Under-19 squads went up on the BCCI’s site on Thursday, one for three one-day matches against Australia Under-19 and one for two multi-day fixtures, and most people needed about four seconds to find the names they were looking for. Fourth on the one-day list: Aaryavir Sehwag. Ninth: Anvay Dravid, with WK after it.

Virender Sehwag’s elder son and Rahul Dravid’s younger son are in the same India squad, which is a headline that writes itself and explains almost nothing about why either of them is there. One has never been picked by India before. The other has been in this set-up since June and already has a Youth ODI 87 behind him.

Aaryavir Sehwag is the one genuinely new name

Line the one-day squad up against the group that toured Sri Lanka in July and 14 of the 15 were on that trip in one squad or the other. Aaryavir is the exception. He is the only player going to Rajkot who was not in Sri Lanka at all.

He is 18, born in October 2007, and he has spent this season with West Delhi Lions in the Delhi Premier League. The innings that put him on selectors’ desks came earlier, in November 2024, when he batted through a Cooch Behar Trophy match against Meghalaya at Shillong and was out for 297 from 309 balls with 51 fours and three sixes. Delhi Under-19 declared on 623 for five.

Fifty-one boundaries in a knock that fell three short of a triple century is a fairly Sehwag way to go about it, and it is also the only part of the comparison worth making. His father made 8,586 runs in 104 Tests at a strike rate of 82, and scored 309 against Pakistan at Multan and 319 against South Africa at Chennai, which is a set of numbers no 18-year-old should be measured against.

Anvay Dravid has already had a tour

Anvay is 17, born in April 2009, and he keeps wicket. He was picked for the Sri Lanka trip in June and made his mark in the second Youth ODI at Hambantota on 6 July, walking in at No. 5 with India 81 for four in the 19th over and leaving with 87 from 67 balls, nine fours and a six in it.

Anvay and Arjun Rajput then put on 145 in 126 balls for the fifth wicket, which was most of the reason India got to 285. He reached fifty off 47 deliveries. Both he and Rajput are in the squad for Australia.

He keeps his place as one of two wicketkeepers in the one-day group, alongside Rajat Baghel. He is not in the multi-day squad, where Manav Krishna and Abhipray Biswas share the gloves. Before any of this he captained Karnataka Under-19s to the quarter-finals of the Vinoo Mankad Trophy.

His older brother Samit, who is 20 and bowls seam, is in neither squad.

India have split the captaincy in two

The selection call that will actually shape the series has nothing to do with either family. In Sri Lanka, Yashbardhan Chauhan captained both squads and Lakshya Raichandani was his vice-captain in both. For Australia, that has been cut down the middle.

Raichandani leads the one-day side with Chauhan as his deputy. Chauhan leads the multi-day side with Raichandani as his. Both are in both squads, so nothing has been taken away from either of them, and the selectors have effectively decided a format each beats one captain across five matches.

Raichandani has some unfinished business in the longer game. He was bowled by Sethmika Seneviratne off the third ball of the innings in the Youth Test at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo, part of a nought for two inside six overs that Manal Chauhan and Kushagra Ojha batted India out of with a hundred each. All three are in the squads for Australia.

Five matches, two cities, and a long run to 2028

The one-day matches are all at Rajkot, on 18, 21 and 23 September, each starting at 9am local time. The first multi-day fixture stays in Rajkot from 27 to 30 September. The second moves to the B Ground at Ahmedabad from 5 to 8 October.

Six players appear in both squads: Chauhan, Raichandani, Kushagra Ojha, Manal Chauhan, Rohit Yadav and Mohit Ulva. That is a lot of overlap for two lists picked for formats this far apart, and it tells you how small the trusted group is at the moment.

There is no tournament at the end of this. India won the Under-19 World Cup earlier this year, a record sixth title, beating England by 100 runs in the final, and the next edition is not until 2028. That is the real point of these five matches. Almost everyone in these squads will have aged out by then, so the selectors are looking for the few who will not have, which is how a first-time 18-year-old and a keeper with one good tour end up in the same 15.

Their fathers, incidentally, last played a Test together at Adelaide in January 2012. It was Rahul Dravid’s last match for India.

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