RP Singh (left) and Piyush Chawla of India Red during a practice session, in Nagpur, on Sunday. (PTI)

Nagpur: Harbhajan Singh, Pragyan Ojha, Amit Mishra and the Pathan brothers — Irfan and Yusuf — will get another opportunity to stake a claim in the national team at the annual NKP Salve Challenger Trophy which gets underway, here, from Monday.

Subramaniam Badrinath, Murali Vijay, Saurabh Tiwary, Dinesh Karthik, Robin Uthappa and Abhimanyu Mithun are among the other players who would like to send the selectors a reminder about their abilities.

India Blue, led by Badrinath will take on Gautam Gambhir-led India Red in the first match of the tournament in a day-night encounter on Monday.

The third team — India Green — is skippered by Harbhajan, who has been placed on ‘trial’ by the selectors for the first two ODIs of the upcoming limited overs home series against England.

Promising Tamil Nadu openers Abhinav Mukund (India Red) and Vijay (India Blue), who have an excellent track record, will also look to improve their chances of a national recall, but for different teams.

Performances of fringe players like Shikhar Dhawan (India Red), who became the only cricketer to score tons in both innings of the Irani Trophy encounter last week, Manish Pandey, and Saurabh Tiwary (all India Blue) will also be watched.

The match will also see a battle between three spinners — Ojha, Mishra (both India Red) and leg-spinner Piyush Chawla (India Blue) — who not too long ago were fighting for the second spinners slot in the national team.

The wicket looks a typical one-day track and with the late afternoon sun beating down, very little assistance is expected for the bowlers. (agencies)