da bet7k： Irfan Pathan, Sreesanth and Anil Kumble will miss the third one-dayer against Sri Lanka to be played in Margao tomorrow
The Preview by Sidharth Monga in Margoa13-Feb-2007
An out-of-sorts Virender Sehwag and Dileep Vengsarkar confer © Getty Images
Now that both India and Sri Lanka have announced their 15-member squads for theWorld Cup, the third one-dayer at Goa on Wednesday will provide a sneak preview about their respective strategies.India, as they have been doing over the last six games – four against West Indies and two against Sri Lanka – will continue to ask questions of themselves. Sri Lanka,wearing a more settled look and with a lead in the series, will havemore on the agenda – to seal the series and avenge the 6-1 drubbingwhen they last toured India. Quite against the run of form, theyhad lost out in the first round of the Champions Trophy too. For Indiathis match is another part of a protracted finetuning, for Sri Lankaanother step in a confidence-building exercise, while the 27,000 or soGoans, who will be packing the stadium to the rafters, would surely want to witness another humdinger of a contest.India go in with a few changes from the previous game. Irfan Pathan is still not 100 per cent fit and will miss out, while Sreesanth will be rested. Anil Kumble will miss the match due topersonal reasons. Zaheer Khan and Ajit Agarkar are set to makea comeback, while Dinesh Karthik is most likely to make way for YuvrajSingh. Sourav Ganguly batted with a bandage on his left thumb – he had injured his thumbat Rajkot – and looked in a bit of discomfort early on. But after a few knocks, helooked okay, as Dravid later confirmed. Suresh Raina and RP Singh, stand-in for the unfit players, were expected to join the team later in the day and not play tomorrow.Yuvraj’s fitness and form will be closely watched as he will be the most crucial batsman inthe Indian middle-order for the World Cup. Last April, at the same venue, he had looked unstoppable. Probably at the brightest of his purple patch then, he had decimatedEngland with a 76-ball 103. He is yet to get a century since and willlook for a happy return to form. After a cruciate ligament tear duringthe Champions Trophy forced him out of international action, he hasplayed only two one-dayers, against West Indies in therecently-concluded series. In those two matches, he did not show anypalpable signs of his earlier form, and was forced out of the next twogames against Sri Lanka because of back spasms. At the nets today Yuvraj batted, bowled, and fielded with a knee cap on. “In the last couple of games he had back spasms. He’s fielded and batted. We feel he is fit enough to be considered in the 12. So we picked him,” said Rahul Dravid at the pre-match press conference.The other closely-watched Indian player will be Sehwag.Sometime ago his opening slot was set in stone; now recalled, the teamis not sure where to use him. He batted in the middle-order in thelast game and scored 19 off 23 before featuring in a soft late-cutdismissal. Dravid said they had notruled out the option of Sehwag opening the innings tomorrow. “”We areall hoping he comes good. I think he’s an innings away from cominggood. If it happens tomorrow, great, if he doesn’t we’ll just have towait a little longer.”Sri Lanka have not chosen their twelve sofar and will take one final look at the pitch tomorrow morning beforedoing so. Missing from the nets was Kumar Sangakkara who had come downwith an upset stomach. Sangakkara had scored a century at Rajkot andwon the man-of-the-match award. But Mahela Jayawardene, the Sri Lankancaptain, didn’t sound worried. “It is nothing serious as such, he hada stomach upset in the morning. We felt that he doesn’t need to cometo the practice. He should be okay tomorrow,” Jayawardene said. Sri Lanka have not chosen their twelve sofar and will take one final look at the pitch tomorrow morning beforedoing so. Missing from the nets was Kumar Sangakkara who had come downwith an upset stomach. Sangakkara had scored a century at Rajkot andwon the man-of-the-match award With a series to be won, the Sri Lankans are not expected toexperiment too much – two of their 15-man squad on this tour are notgoing to the World Cup and hence may not feature in this match. “Everygame is a motivation for us. Winning is a good habit to have. We wantto win every game and that has been the attitude for the last 12months. The team that wants to beat us have to play really well.Winning the series would be a great achievement,” Jayawardene said.After losing the last match at Rajkot, Dravid, mindful that he was not leading the youngest team around, had conceded that a superior fielding effort from Sri Lanka had made the difference in the end. Fielding was indeed the focus for the first forty minutes at the netstoday. After the team had a meeting for around 45 minutes, withall the members sitting on the ground in a circle, they got intofielding and running-between-the-wickets practice before they went forthe nets. Greg Chappell, the coach, chucked balls at Ian Frazer, theteam biomechanist, while the fielders ran in to field and throw andtwo batsmen were made to run between the wickets at the same time. SriLanka followed a more orthodox routine at the nets, an indicator of lesser concerns in fielding.The pitch at the Nehru Stadium in Fatorda looks a batting beauty, agood flat one-day track as the euphemism would have it. Both thecaptains were of the opinion that the pitch should produce a bigscore while Dravid thought it would help spinners in the latter partof the day. Suryakant Naik, the curator, said the wicket would playevenly through the day, predicting 280 to 300 should be a good score.The weather in Goa promises to be rain-free, with temperaturesexpected to range between 26 and 31 degree Celsius. Humidity of 59 percent is expected. India have played four matches at the Nehru Stadiumand have lost three – two of them to Sri Lanka, who have played onlyone other game here, losing to Australia in 1989-90.Squads:India (from): 1 Rahul Dravid (capt), 2 Sourav Ganguly, 3 RobinUthappa, 4 Sachin Tendulkar, 5 Virender Sehwag, 6 Yuvraj Singh, 7Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wk), 8 Ajit Agarkar, 9 Harbhajan Singh, 10 MunafPatel, 11 Zaheer Khan, 12 Dinesh Karthik.Sri Lanka (from): 1 Mahela Jayawardene (capt), 2 Sanath Jayasuriya, 3Upul Tharanga, 4 Kumar Sangakkara (wk), 5 Marvan Atapattu, 6Tillakaratne Dilshan, 7 Chamara Silva, 8 Russel Arnold, 9 UpulChandana, 10 Farveez Maharoof, 11 Lasith Malinga, 12 Dilhara Fernando,13 Malinga Bandara, 14 Nuwan Zoysa, 15 Nuwan Kulasekera.