New Delhi, September 24, 2026 — Baroda’s Priyanshu Moliya has been handed one of the biggest honours available to a young Indian batter this season: the captaincy of the Rest of India Under-23 side for the Col. C.K. Nayudu Trophy winners match against champions Tamil Nadu.
The four-day red-ball fixture will be played at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai from October 1 to 4. The Board of Control for Cricket in India announced the 15-member squad on Wednesday after the Junior Cricket Committee made its selection. Mumbai and Kolkata Knight Riders batter Angkrish Raghuvanshi has been named vice-captain.
The Baroda Cricket Association (BCA) described the appointment as a well-deserved honour after a remarkable domestic campaign and wished Moliya and the full squad every success in Chennai.
A season built on hundreds
Moliya, a right-hand batter and occasional off-spinner born in Rajkot on June 17, 2005, has spent the last year compiling runs across formats for Baroda. According to figures released by the BCA, his 2025–26 ledger reads:
- Col. C.K. Nayudu Trophy: 834 runs in 6 matches, with 5 centuries and 2 fifties
- U-23 One-Day Tournament: 401 runs in 7 matches — Baroda’s highest run-scorer
- Vijay Hazare Trophy: 379 runs in 7 matches, with 2 centuries and 2 fifties
Those List A numbers are independently reflected in first-class and List A career summaries: 379 runs at 63.16, with a highest score of 114, in seven Vijay Hazare matches for Baroda.
The Nayudu haul — five hundreds in six matches — is the performance that most clearly explains why selectors wanted him not only in the Rest of India XI, but at the front of it. It is the kind of red-ball consistency the winners-versus-Rest fixture is designed to test against a title-winning attack.
From U-19 World Cup to Rest of India skipper
Moliya is no overnight story. He represented India at the 2024 ICC Under-19 Men’s World Cup in South Africa, where India finished runners-up. He had already made a mark in senior cricket: he debuted for Baroda in the Ranji Trophy in December 2022 and scored back-to-back first-class hundreds, matching a rare feat in Gujarat cricket. His first-class record stands at 534 runs in eight matches at 44.50, with a highest of 144 not out.
That combination — age-group international experience, early Ranji hundreds, and a mountain of runs in the current U-23 cycle — is what the Junior Cricket Committee has now asked him to convert into leadership.
The Chennai assignment
Tamil Nadu won the Col. C.K. Nayudu Trophy for the first time in 2025–26, beating Maharashtra by seven wickets in the final at Dindigul in March and completing a domestic U-23 double after also lifting the State One-Day title.
The winners-versus-Rest of India match, restored to the calendar as a four-day contest, is the junior counterpart of the Irani Cup: a chance for the champion side to measure itself against a composite XI drawn from the rest of the country, and for selectors to watch emerging players under first-class conditions.
Moliya will lead a mixed batting group that includes Mumbai’s Ayush Jethwa and Manan Bhat, Maharashtra’s Digvijay Patil and Saurashtra’s Raxit Mehta. The gloves are shared by Aravelly Avanish Rao — a 2024 U-19 World Cup teammate of the new captain — and Mayank Verma. The bowling unit brings left-arm spin from Punjab’s Emanjot Singh Chahal and Chhattisgarh’s Varun Singh Bhuie, plus pace from Chandraraj Rathod, Ganesh Suthar, Nikhil Giri, Chetan Sharma and G Sumith.
Rest of India U-23 squad
Priyanshu Moliya (captain), Angkrish Raghuvanshi (vice-captain), Ayush Jethwa, Manan Bhat, Digvijay Patil, Raxit Mehta, Aravelly Avanish Rao (wk), Mayank Verma (wk), Emanjot Singh Chahal, Chandraraj Rathod, Varun Singh Bhuie, Ganesh Suthar, Nikhil Giri, Chetan Sharma, G Sumith.
Baroda’s message
For the BCA, the captaincy is both a personal milestone and a statement about the state’s junior pipeline. Moliya has been a constant in Baroda’s age-group and senior sides; this appointment places a homegrown batter at the centre of a national U-23 XI on one of Indian cricket’s most storied grounds.
The association’s note was short and clear: congratulations to Baroda’s own, and best wishes to Priyanshu and the entire squad for the clash in Chennai.
Play begins at Chepauk on October 1. For Moliya, the job is no longer only to score the hundreds. It is to set the tone for a side assembled to take on the champions — leading from the front.
