The experienced trio of Sachin Tendulkar [Images], Rahul Dravid [Images] and Sourav Ganguly [Images] will not play in this year's NKP Salve Challenger Trophy tournament, the BCCI announced on Friday.
Most of the members of the current ODI squad, playing against Australia in a seven-match series, have not been included in the limited overs tournament to be played in Ahmedabad from October 25-28.
The three teams -- India Red, India Green and India Blue -- will be captained by Mohammad Kaif, Parthiv Patel and Virender Sehwag [Images] respectively, the BCCI announced in a press release.
Gautam Gambhir [Images], Rohit Sharma, Murali Kartik, Dinesh Karthik and Ramesh Powar are only the players from the current squad to take part in the tournament.
The Challenger Trophy is considered as India's premier domestic ODI tournament, but with the absence of the top players it remains to be seen how much interest it would generate this year.
The move to rest the seniors could be to give them some rest ahead of the home series against Pakistan next month, which would be followed by a tour to Australia in December.
India is currently playing world champions Australia in a seven-match ODI series.
The squads:
| India Red | India Green | India Blue |
| Mohammad Kaif (captain) (UPCA) | Parthiv Patel (captain) (Gujarat) | Virender Sehwag (captain) (DDCA) |
| Karan Goel (Punjab) | Cheteshwar Pujara (Saurashtra) | Ajinkya Rahane (Mumbai) |
| Gautam Gambhir (DDCA) | Rohit Sharma (Mumbai) | Dinesh Karthik (TNCA) |
| S Badrinath (TNCA) | Murali Kartik (Railway) | Suresh Raina (UPCA) |
| Virat Kohli (DDCA) | Manoj Tiwary (Bengal) | Neeraj Patel (Gujarat) |
| Ravneet Ricky (Punjab) | Yusuf Pathan (Baroda) | Arjun Yadav (Hyderabad) |
| Praveen Kumar (UPCA) | Abhishek Nair (Mumbai) | Joginder Sharma (Haryana) |
| Mahesh Rawat (w/k) (Haryana) | Niranjan Behra (Orissa) | Ramesh Powar (Mumbai) |
| Pragyan Ojha (Hyderabad) | Iqbal Abdullah (Mumbai) | Amit Mishra (Haryana) |
| Sidharth Trivedi (Gujarat) | Pankaj Singh (Rajasthan) | Yo Mahesh (TNCA) |
| Ishant Sharma (DDCA) | Munaf Patel [Images] (Maharashtra) | Randeb Bose (Bengal) |
| Penal Shah (Baroda) | Gagandeep Singh (Punjab) | Swapnil Asnodkar (Goa [Images]) |
| Srikant Munde (Maharashtra) | Anirudh Srikant (TNCA) | Rakesh V Dhruv (Saurashtra) |
| Paresh Patel (Orissa) | Satyajit Satbhai (Maharshtra) | Saurav Bandekar (Goa) |
| Coach: Lalchand Rajput | Coach: Venkatesh Prasad | Coach: Praveen Amre |
Match Schedule:
Oct 25: 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
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