Skippers speak on their teams and their chances

Ahead of the series beginning today, Rahul Dravid and Michael Vaughan speak out.

Rahul Dravid

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On Indian bowling attack: S Sreesanth has a bit of pace and swings the ball away, Zaheer Khan, of course, had the experience of playing in these conditions. Then we have RP Singh, who's performed for us in the opportunities he's been given.

On Dinesh Karthik: He has been very impressive, he's shown a lot of character. He's always had the attributes of a very good player, and he's taken up the challenge of opening the batting. He had lost his wicketkeeping place but he decided to work hard and come back to the team by the sheer weight of his runs.

Monty Panesar: Monty is quite impressive; he's bowled very impressively against the West Indies. We've studied some tapes of his and found that he bowled exceptionally well.

Absence of Sehwag, Harbhajan: No one can take his place for granted, and that includes me, includes everyone in the team. But there should not be any immediate concerns about anyone

Michael Vaughan

On coming back to Lord's: I haven't played here for a couple of years and am really excited about coming back here and playing a good game of cricket.

When I took over the captaincy, I said I'd like to have 11 captains in the team, now we have two! The more leadership you can have in the dressing room or the pitch, the better. In the middle, I'd be the one making the decisions but I've always more leaders in the dressing room to drive the team forward.

On their bowling attack: It's new and exciting to see. It's a brand new attack with no Harmison, Flintoff, Giles or Simon Jones.