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Lankans get a ?taste? of India
Everything and everyone even remotely related to the Indian team is considered part of caravan by assorted onlookers, writes CS Luthra.
Given that they are the most hyped cricket team in this continent and probably anywhere in the world, they are bound to be tailed to every nook and corner of the globe by zealous media personnel and sundry officials. In turn, everything and everyone even remotely related to the Indian team is considered part of the caravan by assorted onlookers.
And when an issue like the fate of banned skipper Sourav Ganguly lies in the balance and the cricketing world awaits a decision from a retired South African judge with bated breath, then it's obvious that wherever you go, people will make inquiries about his whereabouts.
While Ganguly's fate, and questions like "Is he coming for the series?" bombard you in cricket-crazy Sri Lanka, there is also a special interest in young guns Irfan Pathan and Yuvraj Singh.
Especially after both performed well against the Sri Lankan XI at the NCC grounds here on Monday, even though the match was just a friendly one, arranged to give India some much-needed match practice before they moved to Dambulla to play their opener against the hosts on July 30.
A depleted West Indies team even by their own standards these days, which lost the Test series to Lanka on Monday, is the other contestant in this upcoming triangular.
After arriving in Colombo on Saturday, India only had a single practice session at the Premadasa Stadium on Sunday evening. On Tuesday morning, a luxury coach took them to Dambulla. Another warm-up game is scheduled in Kurunegala --- an hour's drive from Dambulla -- on Wednesday.
"All the Indian players are in a good mood and everything is going smoothly as per the programme," India's local manager De Valliere said eloquently from Dambulla, about 100 miles from the capital.
