It's the middle of the Indian cricket season and time for the Challenger. Three teams will converge at Bangalore and over four breathless days will vie desperately for a shot against England in the one-dayers. Seven slots are booked in the national squad and 33 players will fight for the remaining seven. Here's the lowdown: Batsmen
Rahul Dravid's withdrawal opens up a place. Also keep in mind Yuvraj Singh's horror series in South Africa. But a decent tournament should be enough for Yuvraj to retain his place, given his considerable natural ability, his more-than-useful slow left-armers, and the eye-popping 81 off 46 balls against Haryana a few weeks ago. SS Das will be expecting to fill Dravid's role, but he faces competition from a range of contenders, notably Jacob Martin of Baroda, Hemang Badani, whose stock has dipped sharply since a wonderful century against Australia last year, and Rohan Gavaskar (Sunil's son), who is also worth a few overs. Long shots include the dumped Dinesh Mongia and Hrishikesh Kanitkar.

Seamers
Nine fast bowlers have been used over the last three months. Ajit Agarkar, who did best in the tri-series in South Africa, and Javagal Srinath, who has been made to play one-day cricket even against his wishes, should be the first choices. That leaves Tinu Yohannan, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra and Iqbal Siddiqui fighting for one slot. Yohannan is the flavour of the month - and he's done his bit to deserve it. Zaheer, ever since his debut, had been shaping up to be India's best one-day bowler. Going against him will be recent disclosures by the team physio that he is lazy and unfit. There's another juicy option too - Sanjay Bangar (see allrounders, below).

Spinners
With Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh certainties, and a handful of part-timers in the team, a third spinner shouldn't be required. Sunil Joshi (lower-order batting, experience) will stake the biggest claim, but something special from Sarandeep Singh could earn him a place. Murali Kartik lurks in the background.

Allrounders
Bangar is capable of opening both batting and bowling but was picked for the wrong form of the game in his debut match against England at Mohali. Reetinder Singh Sodhi currently occupies the slot, and he is much more bits-and-pieces than Bangar is. But Sodhi has found some one-day form at the top of the order this season: a blistering hundred against Services was followed by a 78 against Haryana. Very dark horse: Vijay Bharadwaj, surprise one-day packet in 1999 whose career stuttered with a back injury in Australia.

Wicketkeepers
The closest contest. Deep Dasgupta can't keep, can bat, but is likely to be unyielding rather than explosive in the lower order. Sourav Ganguly likes him too. Dasgupta will be pushed hard by Ajay Ratra, a skilful young keeper whose batting lacks the extra oomph that Ganguly has been longing for. Enter Pankaj Dharmani, who once toured South Africa on the merit of his batting alone and whose List A one-day average is almost 40. But another keeper-batsman has been picked in the same 13 as him: one bad game could force Dharmani into competing for a much tougher slot of a specialist batsman.

Squads
India Seniors Sourav Ganguly (capt), SS Das, Virender Sehwag, Hemang Badani, Sanjay Bangar, Deep Dasgupta (wk), Harbhajan Singh, Sunil Joshi, Tinu Yohannan, Iqbal Siddiqui, Debashish Mohanty, Jacob Martin.

India 'A' VVS Laxman (capt), Connor Williams, Daniel Manohar, Rohan Gavaskar, Sangram Singh , Yuvraj Singh, A Ratra (wk), Reetinder Singh Sodhi, Murali Kartik, Zaheer Khan, Ajit Agarkar, Sarandeep Singh, Sitanshu Kotak.

India 'B' Anil Kumble (capt), Mohammad Kaif, Sridharan Sriram, Dinesh Mongia, Hrishikesh Kanitkar, Arjun Yadav, P Dharmani (wk), Syed Zuffri (wk), R Vijay Bharadwaj, Ashish Nehra, Sanjay Pandey, Amit Bhandari, Devendra Bundela.

Rahul Bhattacharya is a staff writer with Wisden.com India.

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