Challenger: Chance for India discards, hopefuls

Nagpur: Team India discards like spinners Harbhajan Singh, Pragyan Ojha and Amit Mishra, and the Pathan brothers -- Irfan and Yusuf, will get another opportunity to stake a claim in the national team at the annual NKP Salve Challenger Trophy which gets underway here from Monday.
S Badrinath, Murali Vijay, Saurabh Tiwary, Dinesh Karthik, Robin Uthappa and Abhimanyu Mithun are among the other players who would like to send the selectors a reminder about their abilities.
India Blues, led by Badrinath will take on Gautam Gambhir-led India Red in the first match of the tournament at the VCA's stadium at Jamtha in a day-night encounter on Monday.
The third team - India Green - is skippered by Harbhajan, who has been ignored for the first two ODIs of the upcoming limited overs home series against England despite regaining full fitness.

Another notable player in view would be left-arm pacer RP Singh who made a dramatic appearance in the Indian team during the Test series in England where he faltered before recovering in the ODIs only to be dropped again for the first two matches against the same opponents.
The two rival sides had a late afternoon session minus Gambhir and south paw Saurabh Tiwary who are expected to arrive here later in the night.
The tournament will be played under the amended ICC rules, including the use of two new balls in each innings, ban on the use of runners in all formats of the game, batsman being given out for obstructing a fielder on appeal from the fielding team besides the changes in the power-play rules as per which the batting and the bowling powerplays will have to be taken between the 16-40 overs.
Teams:
India Red: Gautam Gambhir (Capt), Shikhar Dhawan, Abhinav Mukund, Ambati Rayudu, Ashok Menaria, Wriddhiman Saha (Wk), Jalaj Saxena, Piyush Chawla, Bhargava Bhatt, Pankaj Singh, Jaydev Unadkat,T Sudhendra, Yusuf Pathan, RP Singh.
India Blue: S Badrinath (Capt), Murali Vijay, Paul Valthaty, Manish Pandey, Dinesh Karthik (Wk), Mandeep Singh, Saurabh Tiwari, Irfan Pathan, Amit Mishra, Pragyan Ojha, YV Krishanarty, Prashant Parameshwaran, Pradeep Sangwan, Tanmay Srivastava.
India Green: Harbhajan Singh (Capt), Robin Uthappa, S Anirudha, T Suman, Mohnish Mishra, Wriddhiman Saha (Wk), Ishank Jaggi, Mohammad Kaif, CM Gautham, S Ladda, Iqbal Abdullah, Abhimanyu Mithun, Samad Fallah, Ishwar Choudhary, S Narwal