NKP Salve Challenger Trophy - massive unrealised potential as a tournament?

[TNAmarkFrmIndia]

Does anyone else think that there is so much potential in the NKP Salve Challenger Trophy? It's a concept that is very exciting and one that has much more potential. Imagine having the best one-day players in all of India pitted against each other in 3 separate teams - India 'A', India 'B' and India 'C' - and having a long, proper tri-series spread out in a little over a month (nearly as long as the CB tri-series in Australia). The Challenger Series could potentially be THE domestic one-day tournament in India. Instead of hosting all matches in one city, they could have it in multiple cities all across the country. I'm sure there would be quite a lot of interest among fans and they would want to watch it in the stadiums. And by the end of the tournament, you would expect the highest run-getters and wicket-takers to really prove themselves against the country's best and be knocking on the selectors' doors for a spot in the national team.

[tweaker]

Yes,I also think challenger trophy has huge potential to find new talent.Almost 45 players have chance to showcase their talent.If the 3 teams are selected well,there is a chance of unearthing new talent every year

[Sooda]

I think its a almost pointless ODI tourno and along with the Mushtaq Ali trophy it should be scrapped. The Deodhar trophy does/can do the same thing Challengers do. The Duleep Trophy needs to be extended given greater focus and made league format again for that time must be made by scrapping these meaningless tournos

[TNAmarkFrmIndia]

I think its a almost pointless ODI tourno and along with the Mushtaq Ali trophy it should be scrapped. The Deodhar trophy does/can do the same thing Challengers do. The Duleep Trophy needs to be extended given greater focus and made league format again for that time must be made by scrapping these meaningless tournos

I disagree. The Challenger Series is a great concept as you get to prove yourself against the country's best, hence your performance in the tournament would be held in higher regard. The Deodhar Trophy has the same problem that the Challenger Series does and that is having too few matches to really mean anything (each team in the Deodhar Trophy plays just two matches). As a concept, the Challenger Series is a better tournament as you're not picking players based on the zones they are from, rather how good the players are. So you don't have a situation where you have an East Zone which you know will be the weakest team. In the Challenger Series, you have 3 of the best teams that you could possibly pick from all over the country. The matches would be closely contested too. The series would be an intermediate between List-A cricket and ODI cricket, since there would be a lot of international cricketers playing and the ones who haven't played for India would know what it takes to perform at that level.