The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Chance for the fringe players

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Thursday, Oct 25, 2007
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Chance for the fringe players

G. Viswanath

Ahmedabad: Impressing the selectors will be the ultimate objective of the select players who are here for the UltraTech Challenger Series.

Chief National selector Dilip Vengsarkar and his committee will keenly watch their performance before picking the Indian team for the one-day series against Pakistan. They also might bring an end to the captaincy issue for the Test series against Pakistan and the homes series against South Africa.

BCCI Secretary Niranjan Shah hinted that the selectors might not rush, but would wait until the second ODI against Pakistan. It’s somewhat a tricky and sensitive matter the selectors will have to deal with deftly, but firmly.

It was a terrific performance by M.S. Dhoni and his men in the ICC World Twenty20 Championship. An inconsistent show followed in the ODI series against Australia, but the team bounced back with a superlative exhibition in the T20 at Mumbai.

Squeezed in between India’s series against Australia and Pakistan, this domestic event might not appeal considerably to the locals who are recouping after an exhausting Dusherra revelry. But the faithful, with some reserve energy, would still turn up at Motera and cheer the likes of Parthiv Patel, Virender Sehwag, Suresh Raina, Manoj Tiwary, Rohit Sharma and S. Badrinath.

Injuries laid low the likes of Raina and Tiwary. The latter suffered a shoulder injury at a training session during the Bangladesh tour which messed up his chance of donning the national colours. In his absence, Rohit Sharma was given the break and now Badrinath too has made it.

Reversal of fortunes

For Sehwag, the reversal of fortunes has been altogether unanticipated. He could well have been India’s captain, but destiny had its way. “He has to go back to the nets and sort out his cricket,” was Vengsarkar’s one-liner before the Future Cup series in Ireland. His opinion may not have changed, though Sehwag showed glimpses of form in an odd match or two in the T20 championship in South Africa.

The selectors will get another chance to ascertain whether bowlers like Munaf Patel, Ishant Sharma and Yomahesh have used the off-season to improve.

“It will be a good pitch for a one-day match. There will be good carry,” said Dhiraj Parsana, member, Pitch and Grounds Committee, BCCI. He did not however rule out the dew factor.

The teams: India Blue: Virender Sehwag (capt.), Ajinkya Rahane, Dinesh Karthik, Suresh Raina, Niraj Patel, Arjun Yadav, Joginder Sharma, Ramesh Powar, Amit Mishra, Yomahesh, Ranadeb Bose, Swapnil Asnodkar, Rakesh Dhruv, Saurav Bandekar. Coach: Praveen Amre.

India Red: Mohd. Kaif (capt.), Karan Goel, Gautam Gambhir, S. Badrinath, Virat Kohli, Ravneet Ricky, Praveen Kumar, Mahesh Rawat, Pragyan Ojha, Siddarth Trivedi, Ishant Sharma, Pinal Shah, Srikant Munde, Paresh Patel. Coach: Vijay Patel

India Green: Parthiv Patel (capt.), Cheteshwar Pujara, Rohit Sharma, Piyush Chawla, Manoj Tiwary, Yusuf Pathan, Abhishek Nayar, Niranjan Behra, Iqbal Abdullah, Pankaj Singh, Munaf Patel, Gagandeep Singh, Anirudha Srikkanth, Satyajeet Satbhai. Coach: Lalchand Rajput.

The schedule: Oct. 25: India Red vs. India Blue; Oct. 26: India Green vs. India Red; Oct. 27: India Blue vs. India Green; Oct. 28: Final.

Umpires: A.V. Jayaprakash, Avdhoot Gokhale, S.D. Ranade and Sameer Bandekar. Match Referee: B. Raghunath.

Hours of play: 2.30 p.m. to 6 p.m.; 6.45 p.m. onwards.

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