
The Challenger series is sandwiched between the Indian team’s return from Malaysia and the commencement of the ICC Champions Trophy, in India, beginning October 7. The Challenger trophy has been renamed Challenger Series for the NKP Salve Trophy and will be held from Oct 1 to Oct 4. Sourav Ganguly and Zaheer Khan will be seen in action in the Challenger Trophy tournament in Chennai next week. The national selectors included them in the ‘India Green’ and ‘India Red’ teams respectively.
V V S Laxman, Ashish Nehra and Laxmipathy Balaji also get a chance to prove their credentials in the three-team tournament, which has ‘India Blue’ as the third team. India Blue will be led by Rahul Dravid, while Venugopal Rao and Mohammad Kaif will captain the Red and Green teams respectively.
Telecast:
The Challenger Series, like last year’s edition, will be telecast live in the UK through Sky Sports, Fox Sports in Australia, Super Sport in Africa, Astro in Malaysia and on the internet through Willow TV. In India, the Challenger Trophy matches will be telecast live on Doordarshan. In India, the Challenger Trophy matches will be shown on Neo Sports, the channel of Nimbus group.
For US and Canada, there is no official word so far but more than likely Dishnetwork in US and ATN’s CBN in Canada will be showing it live. For US and Canada, no one is showing it on TV but Dishnetwork is offering the telecast through Willow TV on internet. Read here for more details.
Teams:
India Blue: Rahul Dravid (captain), Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, Dinesh Mongia, Wasim Jaffer, M S Dhoni, Irfan Pathan, Harbhajan Singh, Ajit Agarkar, Munaf Patel, Rudra Pratap Singh, Ravinder Jadeja. Coach: Ian Frazer
India Red: Vengupal Rao (captain), Gautam Gambhir, Robin Uthappa, S Badrinath, Rohit Sharma, T P Singh, D Karthik, V R V Singh, S Sreesanth, Ramesh Powar, Zaheer Khan, Murali Karthik, C Raghu. Coach: Robin Singh
India Green: Mohammad Kaif (captain), Sourav Ganguly, V V S Laxman, Hemang Badani, Suresh Raina, Tanmay Srivastav, Piyush Chawla, Parthiv Patel, Saurasish Lahiri, Ashish Nehra, Laxmipathy Balaji, Pravin Kumar, R S Sodhi. Coach: Lalchand Rajput.
Fixtures:
October 1: India Blue vs India Red
October 2: India Blue vs India Green
October 3: India Red vs India Green
October 4: Final
Also Read: Major domestic tournaments to be telecast live
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