Challenger Trophy Preview: India Blue, Green Or Red?

The ODI World Cup is round the corner. And it's time for the Challenger Trophy, equally an opportunity for players and selectors.

Established players like Yuvraj Singh can hope to get back to form while prospects like Ashwin can hope to attract attention. The players who shine here can also hope for a place in the Indian team to play in the ODIs to follow the tests against Australia.

Three teams, India Blue, India Green and India Red, will compete for the NKP Salve trophy. Yuvraj whose captaincy ambitions are known to all will get to lead India Blue, which has a great talent pool in Rahane, Dhawan, Goswami and Manoj Tiwary.

Rahane in particular will be the cynosure of selectors' eyes after his good showing in the BP XI against the Aussies. Others include Yo Mahesh, Saha, Yadav, Irfan Pathan, Jadeja, RP Singh and Piyush Chawla. Yuvraj should get out of his blue mood of recent times, and aim to showboat his captaincy skills after being given such a talented team.

At the helm of India Green will be Badrinath, fresh from twin victories with Chennai Super Kings in the IPL and the Champions League. His arsenal of talent will include T Suman, A Mithun, Rayudu, and Dhawal Kulkarni, among others.

Apart from Badrinath who will seek to turn his competitors green with envy, his squad have a few serious contenders for an India spot, chief among them Rohit Sharma and Robin Uthappa. Sharma will seek to replicate his form with the Deccan Chargers in the IPL. R Ashwin will also relish the opportunity to push himself further into the limelight after his return from South Africa with the Man of the Series award in the Champions league, firmly in hand.

Dinesh Karthik, who was the linchpin of India's win in the Asia cup final against Sri lanka not so long ago disappointed in the recent tri-series in Sri Lanka. And as captain of India Red, he will try to ensure that the selectors don't see red whenever they think of him.

Karthik would prefer to concentrate on his batting at the top of the order, and to this end he will be helped by Parthiv Patel who could keep wickets for his squad. Other youngsters in the red brigade are Saurav Tiwary, Dinda, Vinay kumar, and Tyagi.

There are also seniors like Yusuf Pathan and Virat Kohli to compensate for the relative weakness in bowling to make the Reds serious contenders for the Challenger Trophy.

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Suresh Iyer is an avid sports fan and blogger.

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