Senior players rested for Challenger series

India's top cricketers including the big three--Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid --will not take part in the upcoming NKP Salve Challenger Trophy with the selectors deciding to rest them in view of the busy calendar ahead.

Apart from the three stalwarts, most of the other members of India's current ODI team such as Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh, Irfan Pathan, have also been rested from the limited overs tournament to be held in Ahmedabad from October 25 to 28.

• Fothcoming cricket fixtures

Virender Sehwag, hoping to force his way back into the national team, has been named as captain of 'India Blue' team while another discard Mohd Kaif will lead the 'India Red' team. Wicketkeeper batsman Parthiv Patel will be at the helm of 'India Green' team.

All the players who have joined the rebel Indian Cricket League have expectedly not found a place in any of the three teams announced by BCCI Secretary Niranjan Shah through a press release.

Although the release did not specify why the senior players were left out, a top BCCI source said it was done only to give them some rest ahead of the series against Pakistan and Australia.

Pakistan are scheduled to be in India from November to December for three Tests and five one-dayers which will be followed by the Indian team's tour of Australia.

Challenger series:

Schedule:
Oct 25, 2007: India Red v/s India Blue
Oct 26: India Green v/s India Red
Oct 27: India Green v/s India Blue
Oct 28: Final Match

Teams:

India Red

1]  Mohd Kaif (Cap)              (UPCA)
2]  Karan Goel                       (Punjab)
3]  Gautam Gambhir (DDCA)
4]  S Bhadrinath                    (TNCA)
5]  Virat Kohli                        (DDCA)
6]  Ravneet Ricky                 (Punjab)
7]  Praveen Kumar               (UPCA)
8]  Mahesh Rawat(W.K.)     (Haryana)
9]  Pragyan Ojha                  (Hyderabad)
10] Sidharth Trivedi             (Gujarat)
11] Ishant Sharma                (DDCA)
12] Penal Shah                     (Baroda)
13] Srikant Munde                (Maharashtra)
14) Paresh Patel                  (Orissa)

15] Lalchand Rajput (Coach)

India Green

1]  Parthiv Patel (Cap)         (Gujarat)
2]  Cheteshwar Pujara         (Saurashtra)
3]  Rohit Sharma                  (Mumbai)
4]  Murali Karthik                  (Railway)
5]  Manoj Tiwary                   (Bengal)
6]  Yusuf Pathan                   (Baroda)
7]  Abhishek Nair                  (Mumbai)
8]  Niranjan Behra                (Orissa)
9]  Iqbal Abdullah                 (Mumbai)
10] Pankaj Singh                  (Rajasthan)
11] Munaf Patel                    (Maharashtra)
12] Gagandeep Singh         (Punjab)
13] Anirudh Srikant             (TNCA)
14] Satyajeet Parab             (Maharshtra)

15] Venkatesh Prasad (Coach)

India Blue

1]  Virender Sehwag(Cap)  (DDCA)
2]  Ajinkya Rahane              (Mumbai)
3]  Dinesh Karthik                 (TNCA)
4]  Suresh Raina                  (UPCA)
5]  Neeraj Patel                     (Gujarat)
6]  Arjun Yadav                     (Hyderabad)
7]  Joginder Sharma            (Haryana)
8]  Ramesh Powar               (Mumbai)
9]  Amit Mishra                      (Haryana)
10] Yo Mahesh                     (TNCA)
11] Randeb Bose                 (Bengal)
12] Swapnil Asnodkar         (Goa)
13] Rakesh V Dhruv            (Saurashtra)
14] Saurav Bandekar           (Goa)

15] Praveen Amre (Coach)