By IANS,
Cuttack : A host of fringe cricketers will look to impressing the national selectors when the N.K.P. Salve Challenger Trophy cricket gets underway at the Barabati Stadium here Thursday.
In the first match, India blue led by Yuvraj Singh will face India Red, which is being skippered by Subramaniam Badrinath in the 50 overs day and night match. The third team India Green will be led by Mohammed Kaif. All the teams will play once with each other and the top two teams will qualify for the final slated for Sunday.
The tournament will be a good platform for rookies like Cheteshwar Pujara, Siddharth Trivedi and Wriddhiman Saha to breakthrough into the big league.
For players like Kaif, Irfan Pathan, Parthiv Patel, Dinesh Karthik and Robin Uthappa, it will be a big opportunity to comeback in the side for the seven-match one-day series against England starting Nov 14.
For middle-order batsman Subramaniam Badrinath and medium-pacer Rudra Pratap Singh, who are in the Test squad for the ongoing Australia series, the tournament will serve as a good match practice before the start of the third Test in Delhi Oct 29.
Teams:
India Blue: Yuvraj Singh (captain), Ajinkya Rahane, Robin Uthappa, Virat Kohli, Ravinder Singh, Irfan Pathan, Dinesh Karthik (wicketkeeper), Yogesh Takawale (wicketkeeper), Ashok Dinda, Pradeep Sangwan, Chetanya Nanda, Arjun Yadav, Siddarth Trivedi and R. Ashwin.
India Red: Subramaniam Badrinath (captain), M. Vijay, F. Fazal, Manoj Tiwary, Rohit Sharma, Jaydev Shah, Abhishek Nayar, Wriddhiman Saha (wicketkeeper), Praveen Kumar, L. Balaji, Piyush Chawla, Vinay Kumar, Monish Parmar, Parthiv Patel (wicketkeeper)
India Green: Mohammad Kaif (captain), Shikhar Dhawan, Naman Ojha (wicketkeeper), Suresh Raina, Cheteshwar Pujara, Saurabh Tiwary, Yusuf Pathan, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Manpreet Gony, Rudra Pratap Singh, Pragyan Ojha, Rajat Bhatia, Abhinav Kumar and Pankaj Singh
Fixture:
Oct 23: India Blue vs. India Red
Oct 24: India Green vs. India Red
Oct 25: India Blue vs. India Green
Oct 26: Final.