Challenger Trophy Final: Five players to watch out for

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As expected, India Blue strolled into the finals of the 2013 edition of the NKP Salve Challenger Trophy, powered by enterprising knocks from skipper Yuvraj Singh and domestic veteran Abhishek Nayar, and a reasonable bowling effort led by rookie seamer Bhuvneshwar Kumar, as they trounced India Red yesterday.

Delhi had a slightly tougher route to the summit clash – they lost their opening match to India Blue, so the encounter with India Red became a virtual semi-final. They triumphed over Yusuf Pathan’s side by a whopping 112 runs, with captain Virat Kohli and former U-19 WC winning skipper Unmukt Chand standing up to be counted.

Veteran seamer Ashish Nehra has also been among the wickets and, quite surprisingly, has done well with the bat in the only chance he got. But against the likes of Yuvraj, Nayar, Naman Ojha and Manish Pandey, he will have to call upon all of his experience to help his side secure the title.

It promises to be a mouth-watering contest – both sides have players itching to get back into the national fold, while the younger ones want to stake their claim for the few remaining spots.

Here is a list of five players who need to be watched out for in the game tomorrow:

5. Varun Sood (Delhi, left-arm spinner)

The 23-year old left-arm tweaker was in terrific form in the game against India Red as he wove a web around the bewildered batsmen, foxing them with his flight and flat trajectory to pick up five crucial wickets.

Against the likes of Yuvraj and Nayar, however, Sood proved to be fairly expensive. However, he has shown that he can learn quickly from his mistakes, and will try to beat the mainstays at their own game by clever variations in speed. The more he bowls slower through the air, the more wickets he gets, so India Blue’s big hitters would do well to play him from within the crease and not keep stepping out like today’s opposition tried to do.

Sood is a terrific talent, and by gaining a little more experience in the domestic arena as well as on the ‘A’ tours, he can revive the art of left-arm spin which has been in hibernation for quite some time now (despite the exploits of Ravindra Jadeja).