The USA Under-15 cricket team was announced by USACA on its website today. The team will travel to Bermuda to take part in the ICC-Americas Under-15 Championships to be held between August 2nd and August 9th, 2008.

USA is the defending ICC-Americas champion, having won the championship when it was last held in 2006. After Tropical Storm Ernesto circled Ft. Lauderdale and reduced that tournament to a one day 20/20 knockout format, USA adapted quickly to the new format defeating Bermuda for the gold.

This year, Team USA will be captained by Abhijit Joshi. Abhijit Joshi and Steven Taylor (named vice-captain) represented ICC-Americas in the Clico Under-15 World Cup held in the Caribbean earlier this year with great success.

The official team includes 3 boys who were not on a list that was published some days ago on DreamCricket.com. That list was hidden after it was brought to DreamCricket's attention by a cricket official that only the USACA Board could release the official list. The selectors who made the recommendations to USACA were Linden Fraser and Prem Suri (US National Selectors), and Anwer Khan (Coach of the 2008 National Under 15 team).

According to the official, "although the selectors may have selected players based on what they saw at the Inter-Zone tournament, factors such as availability and eligibility are considered before finalizing the list, which must always come from a USACA official."

[Note: DreamCricket.com is announcing FREE use of its indoor nets in New Jersey to this team should they want to practice indoors between now and August 2nd. Please write to frontfoot at dreamcricket.com should you wish to book the facility.]

The Under-15 cricket team (player profiles coming soon):

1. Abhijit Joshi - Captain
2. Steven Taylor - Vice Captain
3. Pranay Suri
4. Arsh Buch
5. Vikram Valluri
6. Krishneal Goel
7. Muhammad Mujtaba
8. Jason Fox
9. Kalim Ahmed
10. Andrew Ajodhi
11. Cameron Mirza
12. Steven Sawh
13. Waqas Shah
14. Chris Singh

Coach - Anwer Khan
Manager - Wesley King