October 8, Indore: The NKP Salve Challenger Trophy got underway at the Holkar cricket stadium here in Indore today. The 50-overs-a-side competition gives a chance to a handful of India players – Yuvraj Singh, Dinesh Karthik, Rohit Sharma, S Badrinath, Yusuf Pathan and R Ashwin – to prove themselves ahead of India’s three match ODI series against Australia.

In the first match of the four-day tournament India Blue (captained by Yuvraj Singh) played India Red (captained by Dinesh Karthik). India Blue won the toss and elected to bat first. The Blues did not get off to the best of starts with the score reading 31 for three as early as the seventh over. Yuvraj Singh didn’t do his chances of making a return to the ODI squad any favours, falling to a Vinay Kumar delivery for a mere six runs. The Blues, however, battled back with some strong middle-order performances.

Early on, Ajinkya Rahane (84) and Manoj Tiwary (40) put on 105 for the fourth wicket and then Ravindra Jadeja (58) and Wriddhiman Saha (35 off 32) put on 70 runs for the sixth wicket as the Blues reached a respectable 251 for nine in 50 overs. Sudeep Tyagi bowled well for the Reds and took some crucial lower-order wickets in the Blues’ batting line-up to finish with figures of 3-40 in nine overs.

The India Red innings began only marginally better than India Blue. Manish Pandey (11), Parthiv Patel (23), Virat Kohli (18) and Saurabh Tiwary (22) all managed to get starts but failed to convert those scores into something bigger. It was then left to captain Dinesh Karthik and Yusuf Pathan to go for the India Blue target from a score of 86 for 4 in 19.1 overs.

The combination worked well as Karthik (27) played anchor while Pathan (63 off 30) was his usual blustery self. 83 runs came off just 58 balls but this was followed by both batsmen being dismissed within a space of 18 deliveries, as the Blues made a comeback of sorts. However, Pathan’s knock, which included five 4s and an equal number of 6s, meant that the Reds needed 77 from a comfortable 18.2 overs. Some sensible batting by Monish Mishra (42) and Iqbal Abdulla (30*) guided the Reds to a three-wicket win with eight balls to spare.

Brief Scores – India Red 252 for 7 (Yusuf Pathan 63, Iqbal Abdulla 30*, Yo Mahesh 2-34)beat India Blue 251 for 9 (Ajinkya Rahane 84, Sudeep Tyagi 3-40) by 3 wickets