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3rd Test: Australia wins Sydney Test (scorecard), South Africa won Test Series 2-1.. T20 & ODI series follows.
Current Cricket Series : South Africa vs Australia, West Indies vs New Zealand. Coming Up : India in NZ 2009.

Filed under Challengers Cup 2008

All the best one day cricketers in India to galore at one place - idea behind Challengers trophy is to give youngsters a chance to rub shoulder with established Indian cricketers.. since all the selectors are watching - it's a tournament of selection for Indian domestic cricketers into International scene.

In first match today - India Blue team (lead by much-fat-hardly-athletic Yuvraj Singh) played India Red side, captained by Subramaniam Badrinath. Pitch at Barabati stadium in Cuttack (Orissa state in India) looked as rubbish as it can get with no bounce for fast bowlers and some spin for twickers.

Winning the toss - Yuvraj failed with bat but made it up with the ball (1/35 in 8 overs) while defending smallish total of 235 which was largely built around Robin Uthappa's 94. Irfan Pathan finished up for India Blue team & their total proved little too big for Red side for whom - opener Murali Vijay (89, 107balls, 9x4, 2x6) played an impressive innings.

Ravi Chandran Ashwin - the lanky Tamil Nadu off-spinner looked confident and took 3 crucial wickets with his not-so-flighted off spin. 22 year old extracted some spin off the slow pitch with his tight line-length proved why people regard him as former India captain - S Venkatraghavan's clone.

India Blue : 235/9 in 50 overs
Robin Uthappa 94 (106balls, 9x4, 1x6),
Ajinkya Rahane 28, Yuvraj Singh 6,
Virat Kohli 18, Dinesh Karthik 0,
Ravi Inder Singh 17, Irfan Pathan 43,
Ravichandran Ashwin 11, Pradeep Sangwan 2,
Chetanya Nanda 1*, Siddharth Trivedi 3*.
Praveen Kumar 10-0-34-2 & Mohnish Parmar 10-1-36-0.

India Red : 186 all out in 45.3 overs
Parthiv Patel 6, Murali Vijay 89 (107B, 9x4, 2x6),
Piyush Chawla 9, Subramaniam Badrinath 10,
Rohit Sharma 2, Manoj Tiwary 45 not out(74balls),
Abhishek Nayar 1, Praveen Kumar 2, Vinay Kumar 5,
L Balaji 1, Mohnish Parmar 4.
R Ashwin 10-0-27-3 & Irfan Pathan 6.3-2-24-2.

India Blue won by 49 runs, and also a bonus point.

Indian domestic tournament : NKP Salve Challengers Cup 2008

Profiles of players in Challenger series 2008 squad.

Match 1 : Easy win for India Blue over India Red

Match 2 : India Red beat India Green to keep hopes alive

Match 4 : India Blue wins Challengers Cup 2008.