The Board of Control for Cricket in India’s decision to make the Men’s Under-23 State A Trophy a T20 affair will increase the significance of state T20 leagues across the country, including the UPT20 League, as performances in these leagues could pave the way for players to make the state team.The change means Uttar Pradesh players will now have two major domestic T20 platforms to target — the Men’s State A T20 Trophy and the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy — while their performances in the UPT20 League are expected to play a key role in selection.The development is also expected to attract greater attention from IPL scouts, who already follow the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy closely. With the addition of another domestic T20 competition, consistent performers will have more opportunities to push for higher-level selection.In the previous edition, the UPCA Men’s State A one-day team finished runner-up under coach Gyanendra Pandey.Among the leading run-scorers in the UPT20 League were Karan Sharma with 361 runs, followed by Swastik Chikara with 326, Sameer Rizvi with 310, Ajeet Verma with 302, Adarsh Singh and Abhishek Goswami with 286 each, Prashant Veer with 245, Mohammad Saif with 243, and Rinku Singh with 241 and Divyansh Joshi with 234.In the bowling charts, Zeeshan Ansari topped the list with 25 wickets, followed by Abhinandan Singh with 24. Shiva Singh took 16 wickets, Atal Bihari Rai claimed 15, while Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Ajay Kumar III picked up 14 each. Kartik Siddhu, Vijay Yadav, Yash Garg and Naman Tiwari finished with 13 wickets each.UPCA secretary Prem Manohar Gupta said the association had formed an internal scouting panel before the UPT20 League to identify talent for the 2026-27 domestic season. The panel included former India cricketer Praveen Kumar, Gopal Sharma, Rahul Sapru, Rizwan Shamshad and Shashikant Khandekar. “Before the UPT20 League, we had decided to form an internal scouting panel. The five members scouted talent across all 34 matches for the upcoming domestic season, especially for the Men’s State A T20 Trophy and the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. They will submit their report on players who performed well in the UPT20 League,” Gupta said.UPCA selector Rizwan Shamshad said the expansion of T20 opportunities would benefit players who had performed well but could not find places earlier because of limited squad slots. “We were scouting talent during the UPT20 League and have shortlisted five to six uncapped players, whom our panel has placed on top of our priority list. There are also two to three longer format players whom we are planning to try in the T20 format. Our list is ready and we will submit it soon to the UPCA. We want deserving players, who did not get a chance to play last year, should also get opportunities in the shorter version,” he added.
