Challenger Trophy: A challenge for some cricketers

Chennai, Sep 30 (UNI) With more colour added to the event by christening the teams as India Blue, Red and Green, the Challenger Series for the N K P Salve Trophy beginning here tomorrow will provide a platform for a few cricketers, including the deposed Indian skipper Saurav Ganguly, to prove their mettle ahead of the World Cup.

The four-day day-night event does not have much at stake as the Indian team has already been selected for the next month's Champions Trophy.

However, it would be crucial for players like Saurav, V V S Laxman and left arm medium pacer Zaheer Khan for whom the tournament would provide an ideal chance to impress the new selection committee headed by Dilip Vengsarkar and entertain their hopes of making it to the National side for the quadrennial event at West Indies in February next year.

As a parting gift, outgoing selector Kiran More renewed the hopes of a few cricketers who have been left out in the cold.

The focus would be on Sourav Ganguly. But it was a pleasant surprise for Wasim Jaffer, basically considered a test player and was named in the Rahul Dravid-led team to give him a chance to prepare himself for the South African series.

''We do not want to put a stamp on him saying he is a test player only. Our season is starting now and he also needs to get some practice against the best in the country.

''Before he goes to South Africa this will be good chance for him,'' More said, justifying Jaffer's inclusion.

For battle-scarred veterans like Saurav and Laxman, who has been put in a tight-rope walk situation to prove his mettle, their combeack stint would be under Kaif. For local hero Laxmipathy Balaji this would be the come back match after a long lay off and the strappy medium pacer was brimming with confidence to get back into the team for the South African tour and the World Cup.

The ''Challenger'' would help the Indian Blues, containing more or less the entire Champions Trophy team, to rectify the mistakes after their poor show in the DLF series in Kuala Lumpur.

Considering the depth both in batting and bowling, the India Blues, keen to come out of the 'Malaysian Blues', start as firm favourites.

However, Sachin, who had completely recovered from his shoulder surgery, would be missing the first match against India Reds and will play against India Greens and in the final if the Blues qualified.

Dashing opener Virender Sehwag who had a forgettable tournament in Kuala Lumpur, would be keen to get back his form, while skipper Rahul Dravid will use the tournament to fine tune his own skills.

Coached by Ian Fraser, the India Blues team is likely to continue with the experimentation, the 'strategy' of coach Greg Chappel, to find the perfect combination for various situations ahead of the World Cup. Following are the teams: India Blues: Rahul Dravid (Cap), Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, Dinesh Mongia, Wasim Jaffer, M S Dhoni, Irfan Pathan, Harbhajan Singh, Ajit Agarkar, Munaf Patel, Rudra Pratap Singh, Ravindra Jadeja.

Coach: Ian Frazer.

India Reds: Y Venugopala Rao (Cap), Gautham Gambhir, Robin Uthappa, S Badrinath, Rohit Sharma, Dinesh Kaarthick, T P Singh, V R V Singh, S Sreesanth, Ramesh Powar, Zaheer Khan, Murali Kartik, C Raghu.

Coach: Lalchand Rajput.

India Greens: Md Kaif (Cap), Sourav Ganguly, V V S Laxman, Hemang Badani, Suresh Raina, Tanmay Srivastava, Piyush Chawla, Parthiv Patel, Sourashish Lahiri, Ashish Nehra, L Balaji, Praveen Kumar, R S Sodhi.

Coach: Robin Singh.

Umpires: S N Bhandekar, S K Tarapore and Jasbir Singh.

Match Referee : V K Ramaswamy.

Schedule: Oct 1: India Blue vs India Red, Oct 2: India Blue v India Green Oct 3: India Green v India Red Oct 4: Final.

UNI