PKF Tigers' allrounder James Faulkner and Tasmanian Umpire Sam Nogajski have both been selected to take part in the upcoming Emerging Players Tournament.

The annual Emerging Players Tournament gets underway in Brisbane next month and will showcase some of the best up and coming talent from some of the world’s leading cricket nations.

Five years on since the inaugural competition in 2005 and the hosts are yet to claim the title after Karnataka (a state team from India) won the opening event, while South Africa took the honors in 2006 and 2007, New Zealand in 2008 and India last year.

In 2010, the same four nations will be competing with emerging player teams from India, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. The Australian team competes under the AIS banner as part of the AIS Scholarship Program conducted at the Centre of Excellence in Brisbane.

This year, the AIS squad will be jointly led by COE batting coach David Fitzgerald and spin bowling coach John Davison, under the watchful eye of Greg Chappell.

“The Emerging Players Tournament is a terrific way for our scholars to end their program and be part of some extremely competitive cricket in the lead-up to the Australian interstate season,” co-coach David Fitzgerald said.

“This year we’re very lucky to have quite a large complement of players available for selection during the tournament, including some with international experience and those players will play a big role in continuing the development of the younger squad members.

“To have players of the calibre of Callum Ferguson and Moises Henriques available to work with our younger squad members will be invaluable.

“Under the guidance of Greg Chappell, the AIS Scholarship Program has taken a much more game-focused plan and the scholars have been lucky enough to have some good preparation recently, playing against the touring Mumbai Indians squad.

“That gave them a good challenge and we’re looking forward to seeing what they learnt from that and some further improvement in the Emerging Players Tournament starting in a couple of weeks,” Fitzgerald said.

In addition, the AIS squad will again include two MRF Pace Foundation players for the tournament continuing strong reciprocal relationship between the two academies.

Some of the players who have tasted international cricket and competed in the Emerging Players Tournament since 2005 are; Adam Voges, Ben Hilfenhaus, Luke Ronchi, Shaun Marsh, Callum Ferguson (Australia), Jacob Oram, Shane Bond, Hamish Marshall, Mark Gillespie, Ross Taylor, Peter Fulton, Michael Papps (New Zealand), Neil McKenzie, Robin Peterson (South Africa) and Robin Uthappa (India).

The CA Umpire High Performance Panel also announced the umpires for the tournament, which will include a series of professional development workshops in addition to the on-field umpiring.

For the first time, selected emerging umpires will have the opportunity to officiate with current National Panel umpires throughout the tournament as part of their professional development, as well as a visiting umpire from South Africa.

Emerging Umpires:

Ashley Barrow (VIC)
Nathan Johnstone (WA)
Sam Nogajski (TAS)
Michael Kumutat (NSW)
Damien Mealey (QLD)

National Panel Umpires:
1st week Bruce Oxenford
2nd Week Bob Parry

Visiting South African Umpire:
Shaun George

Teams

Australian Institute of Sport
Peter George, Josh Hazlewood, Nicholas Buchanan, Moises Henriques, Luke Feldman, Sean Abbott, Ben Dunk, James Faulkner, James Pattinson, Mitchell Starc, Luke Pomersbach, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Ryan Carters, Glenn Maxwell, Alister McDermott, Nathan Brain, Jason Floros, Nic Maddinson, Callum Ferguson, Gursewak Singh*, Malhotra Sahib*

*MRF Pace Foundation

India
Parthiv Patel (c), Cheteshwar Pujara (vc), Shikar Dhawan, Ajinkya Rahane, Sourav Tiwary, Kedar Jadhav, Naman Ojha, Abhinav Mukund, Umesh Yadev, Jaydev Unadkat, Vinay Kumar, Dhawal Kulkarni, Jaskaran Singh, Piyush Chawla, Ravichandran Ashwin

New Zealand
Neil Broom, Jamie How, Bradley Scott, Shanan Stewart, Brent Arnel, Robert Young, Brendon Diamanti, Michael Bates, Colin de Grandhomme, Tim McIntosh, Neil Wagner, Luke Woodcock, Dean Brownlie, Nick Beard, Hamish Bennett

South Africa
Davy Jacobs (c), Pierre Joubert, Ryan Bailey, Pumelela Matshikwe, CJ DeVilliers, Daryn Smit, Dane Wilas, Basheer Walters, Reeza Hendricks, Jon-Jon Smuts, Farhaan Berhardien, Colin Ingram, Vaughn Van Jaarsveld, Aaron Phangiso, Craig Alexander