Mix of youth and experience to take on Stags

Media Release
Friday 24 February 2017

The Auckland Aces have named four potential debutants in their Plunket Shield squad to take on Central Districts at Colin Maiden Park starting tomorrow.

Ben Horne, Raja Sandhu, Glenn Phillips and Aniket Parikh have all been named in the XII to face the Stags, if they take the field it will be their First Class debuts.

Horne, Sandhu and Phillips will be familiar to Aces fans after appearing in the Super Smash and Ford Trophy campaigns however Parikh is a fresh face who has represented New Zealand at Under-19 level and also been involved in Auckland age group teams.

He says his selection came as a “bit of a surprise” but is excited at the potential of making his Aces debut.

“I was pretty surprised, actually I’m still pretty surprised, it’s still soaking in. Mark [O’Donnell] called me over after the A team game and said I was in and that was it,” says Parikh.

The 19-year-old off-spinner says while it’s a new environment there are still familiar faces around the Aces setup.

“I’ve played with Raja and Ben all year with the A team stuff and also there’s Guppy-Bunce and Tarun from Cornwall so it’s nice to have a few familiar faces around,” he says.

Aces coach Mark O’Donnell says he was impressed with Parikh in the recent A team game against Canterbury A.

“His selection is probably a potential glimpse at the future,” says O’Donnell.

“Elliott [Herd] was probably a tad unlucky there, having his cracked thumb hasn’t helped, but we are looking at that second spinner on what is likely to be a slow surface at Colin Maiden,” says O’Donnell.

The Auckland side come into the back half of the Plunket Shield competition in fourth place and will want maximum points against Central to keep pace with the top three.

The Aces take on the Stags at Colin Maiden Park starting tomorrow, first ball 10:30am.

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Auckland Aces
Donovan Grobbelaar
Michael Guptill-Bunce
Ben Horne
Colin Munro
Tarun Nethula
Rob Nicol (c)
Robbie O’Donnell
Aniket Parikh
Glenn Phillips
Jeet Raval
Raja Sandhu
Sean Solia

ENDS

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