Sree replaces injured Praveen

Team India promises to create some drama at the upcoming World Cup with injured medium pacer Praveen Kumar making way for mercurial fast bowler S Sreesanth. Abhijeet Kulkarni reports. Who would have done it better? | Back on track

Team India promises to create some drama at the upcoming World Cup with injured medium pacer Praveen Kumar making way for mercurial fast bowler S Sreesanth.

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The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Tuesday announced that Sreesanth — considered a tad unlucky to miss out in the first place — would replace Kumar, who has been sidelined with a tennis elbow.

This was ratified by the International Cricket Council. With this, India will hope their injury woes are firmly behind them.

A pleased Sreesanth told HT: "I am confident. I hope I can contribute to India winning the World Cup in front of our fans." He added: "The season has been good so far. I did reasonably well in South Africa."

The bowler — who had 10% of his match fee docked and earned the ire of his captain, MS Dhoni, for showing dissent during the series in South Africa — promised to focus on the job at hand.

The squad already has three specialist seamers in Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra and Munaf Patel. India will now hope their key batsmen — Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir — are all fully recovered from injuries.

The team begins a brief preparatory camp in Bangalore on Wednesday and will also play two warm-up games before they kick off their World Cup campaign against Bangladesh in Mirpur on February 19.