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Men in Blue enter
the Emerald Island facing a stiff challenge |
August 11, 2006
 The
15-man Indian Squad has left for Sri Lanka to
take part in the Tri-Series Unitech Cup that
gets underway on this 14th with hosts Sri Lanka
taking on South Africa at the Premadasa in
Colombo. Each team plays the other twice and
this series is a mixture of day and night and
day matches. India play their first match on the
16th against Sri Lanka at Premadasa. The team
has left to Colombo a week prior to the
tournament as it wants to get acclimatized to
the Sri Lankan conditions which tend to be a lot
more humid than what it is in India.
 This
Tri-Series will see the return of the Record
Blaster Sachin Tendulkar who is making a
comeback after a long lay off due to a shoulder
surgery. It should be exciting to watch
Tendulkar bat as he would be looking forward to
make his batting do the talking to his
detractors who have the same view about him as
Sanjay Manjrekar had in his controversial
article 'Sachin, don't be afraid of failure'. It
is also a comeback for Dinesh Mongia who has had
a successful county stint with Leicestershire,
he could be giving a serious race for Mohammad
Kaif in the line up with his useful ability of
chipping in with some useful left arm spin and
power packed shots. For Greg Chappell, this
series could be a stern test with Sri Lanka
looking to seek revenge after an embarrassing
1-6 defeat when they had toured India last year.
India has an unimpressive record in Sri Lanka as
they could muster wins in just 9 of the 33 ODIs
they have played against Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka.
The homeside has dominated with 19 wins with
most of them coming courtesy of its their slow
bowlers like Muttiah Muralitharan, Sanath
Jayasuriya and others who had been successful in
putting the brakes to the dazzling Indian
strokeplayers. We will have to wait and see what
kind of affect the two conditioning camps would
have on Team India's performance in this Unitech
Cup.
India ODI Squad for the Unitech Cup :
Rahul Dravid (Captain),
Virender Sehwag (Vice Captain),
Sachin Tendulkar,
Yuvraj Singh,
Dinesh Mongia,
Mohammad Kaif, Suresh
Raina,
Mahendra Singh Dhoni (Wicket Keeper),
Ajit Agarkar,
Harbhajan Singh,
Ramesh Powar,
Irfan Pathan, Munaf Patel,
Rudra Pratap Singh,
Sreesanth
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