No extra pressure on players, says Dravid

Rahul Dravid was perched a plastic chair on the outfield of the Madhavrao Scindia Cricket Ground in Rajkot when he addressed the media in the customary pre-match press conference ahead of the second one-day international against Sri Lanka. Surrounded by a gaggle of members of the television and print media jostling for space he put the forthcoming match in perspective.

Dravid was keen to underscore the fact that the selection of the squad for the World Cup would not be made simply on the basis of a few matches. "Ideally we would have liked the guys to have played as much as possible but I don't think the fact that they have not played as much as we would have liked will hamper World Cup selection," said Dravid. "We don't make judgments on people who have been playing for a long while on the basis of one game, one innings or one or two matches. Just from the point of view of finding out what is our best combination, it is a bit of an irritant. But I'd rather have a few injuries now than in the middle of the World Cup. We don't view it as any added pressure. We don't judge the World Cup squad just on the basis of this one performance."

Having said that Dravid also spoke about how he was happy with the manner in which the Indian squad was shaping up. "What I like about the squad we are getting together at the moment is that it gives us the flexibility to be able to play different kinds of combinations based on the conditions we are confronted with, based on the team we will be up against and based on the form of the individuals."

While saying this Dravid did say that there were a number of fitness concerns in the team. "We still are a little concerned about the boys in terms of their fitness. They have practised a little bit today but it's a question of how they pull up tomorrow," he said. "There are still concerns, especially with Irfan [Pathan] and Yuvraj [Singh]. Ajit [Agarkar] still has to recover from the flu. We will see and assess it in the morning and make a call in the morning."

When pressed once more about the fact that Sri Lanka were playing these games without Muttiah Muralitharan or Chaminda Vaas, Dravid explained how the absence of the two experienced campaigners may not necessarily hit Sri Lanka hard. "It's always hard to replace players of that quality but one-day cricket is not just about the stars or the big-names but more about collective team performances," he said. "We have shown in the past that you can do well even if one or two of the big names are injured. In one-day cricket, you can sometimes make up the loss of the experienced players by mixing and matching your team."

At the same time Dravid also looked beyond the issue of team selection and reiterated that India were keen to win against Sri Lanka, and hoped his bowlers would lift their performances and force a positive result. "The wicket looks good, like Rajkot usually does. I hope there is a good atmosphere tomorrow," he said. "It looks a good batting wicket, hopefully our bowlers can bowl well. If we can bowl well here, I am hopeful that we can win."