India wake up to a life beyond Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly as they launch a new season with a triangular cricket series match against Sri Lanka in Dambulla on Saturday, hoping that new coach Greg Chappell would be be able arrest their sliding fortunes.
Never in the last 10 years have the two giants of one-day cricket been missing together from a one-day assignment though Ganguly, after a reduction in ban, would reappear for the second round of matches from August 3.
Tendulkar and Ganguly first set up the firm of history's most profitable opening partnership and then staggered their roles in one-day line-up to emerge with 13642 and 9945 runs from 348 and 270 games with 60 centuries between them. India, incidentally, has played only 584 one-day games.
It is a hole which is not easily filled even though V V S Laxman is substituting for the experience of the two legends.
Unfortuantely, Laxman has more sceptics than believers in his one-day ability. Most regard he is only good when the ball comes on to the bat and cannot tonk the ball in the air like Ganguly and sometimes Tendulkar do.
Mahender Singh Dhoni will be looked upon with hope to whip up a verve and dash of his own and Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif can no longer complain that they get too few overs to showcase their talent.
Emphatically, the last few years have shown that Virender Sehwag and Rahul Dravid remain India's best bet. Whenever the two fired together, Indians had runs on the board. These two would have featured prominently in India's winning performances, in Tests and one-dayers, in the past 12-16 months.
They choose different ways to go about their task in one-day cricket. Sehwag uses the advantage of infield at the start to rattle up a string of boundaries while Dravid hopes to bat for long enough to cut loose in the last five overs.
India has not been able to take advantage of the first 15 overs or the slog overs regularly enough after 2003 World Cup.
Adding to the team's woes, the bowlers have struggled to bowl out opposition within the stipulated 50 overs.
Of the last 10 matches India played against Sri Lanka and Pakistan in the sub-continent, they have got the rival teams all out in only three games. And not even once, in last three games in Sri Lanka.
Indian would be hoping to win the toss and bat first since chasing has always been a difficult proposition under lights in Sri Lanka.
The cool breeze and humid conditions in evening afford swing bowlers extra zip and movement with the new ball.
Sri Lanka, the hosts, will look for greater depth and flexibility from their eleven.
They have a bunch of all-rounders and have always been an good fielding side.
Sri Lanka will sport an experienced batting line-up in Marvan Atapattu, Mahela Jayawardene, Sanath Jayasuriya and Kumara Sangakkara.
The pace combination of Chaminda Vaas, Nuwan Zoysa, Fervez Mehroof, Dilhara Fernando and Lasith Malinga is also sharper and livelier than their Indian counterparts.
Unlike the Indians, who will be looking at J P Yadav to shore up the lower half of Indian batting, Sri Lankans have cheeky customers like Russell Arnold, T Dilshan, Upul Chandana, Vaas and Muttiah Muralitharan to string together fine contributions.
Sri Lanka with more multi-dimensional players have translated into a formidable one-day unit and are ranked second by the ICC, while India stand five notches below them.
Teams (from):
India: Rahul Dravid (captain), Virender Sehwag, V V S Laxman, Mahender Singh Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh, Mohammad Kaif, J P Yadav, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Laxmipathy Balaji and Irfan Pathan.
Sri Lanka: Marvan Atapattu (captain), Mahela Jayawardene, Sanath Jayasuriya, Kumara Sangakkara, T Dilshan, Russell Arnold, Chaminda Vaas, Upul Chandana, Muthiah Muralitharan, Nuwan Zoysa, Dilhara Fernando, Fervez Mehroof, Lasith Malinga, Upul Tharanga and Dilhara Lokuhettige.
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