Time for young guns to show their wares

Port of Spain, Mar 16 (UNI) It will probably be the last World Cup for the three demigods of Indian cricket - Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly and they would want to leave the big statge with their imprints.

But their opponents, beginning with the Bangladeshis here tomorrow, will probably be even more fearful of Yuvraj Singh and Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who are two of the biggest hitters in international cricket.

And not to ignore young Robin Uthappa and Virender Sehwag, who despite his indifferent form can still be a potent weapon, and the picture of a mighty batting side is almost complete.

So, while batting might be the least of India's worries, India's chances in the high profile World Cup campaign would depend on how well the bowling and fielding holds up under pressure.

India's ODI record in the Caribbean - five wins in the last 20 matches - is not something to write home about. The 41 per cent winning margin over the last 20 ODIs is also not proof of any great Cup aspirations.

But expectations are different altogether when it come to Team India. No other team has a fan club of close to a billion people.

The Indians know that collective triumphs are the hardest to achieve while individual records are more easily built.

What Rahul Dravid is attempting to do is to find that spark of inspiration for his team that is among the four favourites for the Cup.

The skipper also most recently promised that his players would be throwing themselves whole-heartedly in the field in order to improve what may be the weakest link in their cricket chain.

Of all the leading sides at the World Cup, India are possibly the hardest to make a forecast about. But the top order has close to 100 ODI centuries among them and the batsmen ran up a world record string of 17 successful chases last year.

A calm returned to their batting in the recent home series in which they beat the West Indies and Sri Lanka. In a dramatic warm-up game they beat the daylights out of the home side -- the West Indies in a defiant show of destructive bowling.

The most recent form suggests India is a force to reckon with. Whether the team can justify the hype and the expectations that it carries every time to the World Cup remains to be seen.

As runner-up in 2003 to Australia, the Indians also have a World Cup form to go by.

Former coach John Wright who ran that campaign now believes India is better prepared in 2007 than it was four years ago.

The patch up between Ganguly and coach Greg Chappell who was thought to be the force who kept the former Indian captain out of the team for a while could not have come at a better time.

The southpaw has a phenomenal record to boast of since his triumphant return to ODIs.

There is greater cohesion in the team. With a homely base in Trinidad for the preliminary league, the Indians have had reason to feel they are mentally ready for the fray now. They also have this magnetic attraction that brings crowds to watch cricket, whether at home where millions of cricket fans are ready to pay homage to their rockstar-like status or abroad where people of Indian origin, as in Trinidad&Tobgao and the Indian diaspora, well settled in nearby the US.

The India-Bangladesh and the India-Sri Lanka matches are already sold out and they may well be the only matches in the preliminary league to be so popular.

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