India Blue and India Red were declared joint winners of the NKP Salve Trophy after rain played spoilsport in the summit clash of the Challenger Series in Chennai on Wednesday.

India Blue were 210 for four in 31.2 overs with Virender Sehwag unbeaten on 90, and Mahendra Singh Dhoni on 6 when play was stopped at 5.12 pm after a downpour.

Sehwag blasted 14 boundaries and a six in his 81-ball knock.

It rained heavily for an hour and then stopped. The umpires made one inspection at 6.30 and preferred to have another one before deciding on the fate of the match.

When it rained heavily for the second time, the umpires did not conduct any inspection before calling off the match at 7.45 pm.

Earlier, Sachin Tendulkar was out for 0 when he was caught by Robin Uthappa off Zaheer Khan. Captain Rahul Dravid scored a breezy 43 off 52 balls, with four boundaries, adding 101 runs for the third wicket with Sehwag.

Zaheer also claimed the wicket of Irfan Pathan (22) to register figures of 2 for 32 in his six overs.

India Red fast bowler V R V Singh, who took seven wickets in the tournament, was declared man of the series. The two teams received Rs 3.75 lakh each as prize money.

Scorecard:

India Blue
V Sehwag not out 90
S Tendulkar c Uthappa b Z Khan 0
I Pathan c sub b Z Khan 22
R Dravid run out Uthappa 43
Yuvraj Singh lbw b Kartik 27
MS Dhoni not out 6

Extras (lb 1, w 19, nb 2) 22

Total (for 4 wickets in 31.2 overs) 210

Did not bat: D Mongia, A Agarkar, Harbhajan Singh, RP Singh, M Patel.

Fall of wickets: 1-6, 2-55, 3-156, 4-194.

Bowling: Zaheer Khan 6-1-32-2, S Sreesanth 8-0-51-0, VRV Singh 7-0-51-0, R Powar 3-0-21-0, M Kartik 5.2-0-39-1, TP Singh 2-0-15-0.

India Red: R Uthappa, S Badrinath, Venugopal Rao (c), R Sharma, TP Singh, D Karthik, R Powar, Zaheer Khan, M Kartik, VRV Singh, S Sreesanth.