The 26-year-old Prasidh was forced to pull out of the series because of a back injury. “Shardul Thakur has been selected to replace Prasidh Krishna, who suffered a back injury on the eve of the first match against New Zealand A,” a BCCI official told PTI.
Sakariya was picked by the West Zone selectors on Sunday in the Ajinkya Rahane-led side, which will play in the inter-zonal tournament, scheduled to be held from September 8 to 25 in Tamil Nadu.
India A and New Zealand A will face off in the next two games of the series on September 8 and 15 in Hubbali and Bengaluru respectively.
India A squad: Priyank Panchal (capt), Abhimanyu Easwaran, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Rajat Patidar, Sarfaraaz Khan, Tilak Varma, KS Bharat (wk), Upendra Yadav (wk), Kuldeep Yadav, Saurabh Kumar, Rahul Chahar, Shardul Thakur, Umran Malik, Mukesh Kumar, Yash Dayal, Arzan Nagwaswalla
West Zone squad for Duleep Trophy: Ajinkya Rahane (capt), Shreyas Iyer, Prithvi Shaw, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rahul Tripathi, Chirag Jani, Het Patel, Hardik Tamore, Shams Mulani, Tanish Kotian, Atit Seth, Chintan Gaja, Chetan Sakariya, Jaydev Unadkat and Satyajeet Bachhav