Kohli, Sangwan and Srivastava to train in Australia

Virat Kohli, the captain of the India under-19s, and team-mates Pradeep Sangwan and Tanmay Srivastava, have been awarded the Border-Gavaskar scholarship for 2008. The scholarship will enable them to train for six weeks at Cricket Australia's Centre of Excellence in Brisbane.

"It's really good to receive the scholarship. I think my performance in the [U-19] World Cup has been taken into consideration for this" Sangwan told the Hindustan Times. Sangwan, a left-arm seamer who is Kohli's team-mate in Delhi's Ranji squad, was one of the stand-out performers in India's victorious U-19 World Cup campaign, taking eight wickets from six matches at 20.75.

Meanwhile, Srivastava, who was the top-scorer in the tournament with 262 runs at 52.40, felt it was an "honour" to be a recipient of the scholarship. "This is the most sought-after scholarship and I am really lucky to get this. I am looking forward to further working on my skills and improving my game while we are trained in Australia."

Kohli also had a good run in the U-19 World Cup, scoring 235 runs to finish as the third-highest run-getter, and was one of only three batsmen to score a century in the tournament, which was held in Malaysia.

The trio will be joined on their Australian stint by Mumbai seamer Dhawal Kulkarni, whose trip has been sponsored under the Dilip Sardesai Scholarship, which has been newly constituted by the Mumbai Cricket Association. They will leave for Brisbane on Saturday.