Cricinfo - Blogs - Cricinfo Select - 'I expected Sourav to come back'

The return of Ganguly and several other seniors has, however, resulted in a flip-side: India go into the World Cup with ageing legs and a fielding handicap. So is this Dad's army? "It is what it is," said Chappell. "I can't change it. You can look at the positive side of it and say we've got more experience than anyone else. The downside is that we'll give away a bit in the field but hopefully we can more than make up for that with the experience with the bat and ball."

So is India's fielding a concern? "Concern may not be too strong a word, it is probably not strong enough," he said. "We are going to be conceding runs in the field to the better teams, there is no doubt about that. We understand that, we knew that when we picked the squad. We will have to organise ourselves accordingly and that means placing the right people in the right
positions. We can't afford to relax on that because there is going to a lot of low-scoring, medium-scoring games, below 200s, below 300s is going to be the norm.

Chappell expects part-time bowlers like Sachin Tendulkar to play an important role at the World Cup © Getty Images

"They will be close games so it's going to be very important, we just have to work at it and do the best we can. Which means we have to be conscious, our batting has to find 30 extra runs a game and our bowlers will have to concede that many less. So between the two we will have to make up for 30 runs somewhere."

Chappell felt that spin would play an important part in the World Cup, with the pitches expected to play on the slightly slower side, and was glad that India had the options to cover for that eventuality. "We want to play three seam bowlers in each match," he said. "We couldn't in Rajkot because of injury and illness but ideally we'll like to have five bowlers in every game but that's not necessarily going to be possible. I'm not worried about that because Sachin [Tendulkar] has shown us how clever he can be with the ball, Viru [Sehwag] is a more than
competent offspin bowler and Yuvraj [Singh] has played some important roles with the ball as well. So we have three better-than-part-time bowlers, in my view, who can take up the fifth-bowler option."

Gleanings from Greg

The batting order

Sourav Ganguly: He's improved his batting, his fielding ... his fitness is better than I've ever seen it.

Virender Sehwag: Sehwag in form is a damaging player, we have to give him every opportunity as an opener. He is a proven matchwinner at the top of the order, that's where he can do the most damage for us ... but if he is not performing then we may have to rethink that.

Sachin Tendulkar: We've used Sachin in a different role and it has worked out really well for us ... It took him two games to get used to batting in the middle order and now we have another multi-dimensional player who can be used both at the top and middle order.

Yuvraj Singh: The 20-40 over period will have a big bearing in the World Cup. I think with Yuvraj in form we have a better chance of doing that well than we had in South Africa.

Rahul Dravid: Dravid at No 5 is a good option, sandwiched between Yuvraj and Dhoni it's a very good balance. He can control the middle order and if he has some power players to hit the boundaries he can play more to his strengths.

Chappell says Mahendra Singh Dhoni is "one of the most improved cricketers in world cricket in the last 12 months" © Getty Images

Mahendra Singh Dhoni: Dhoni's worked very hard on his batting and keeping - I think he's one of the most improved cricketers in world cricket in the last 12 months. He was someone who would come in at the end of the innings and blaze away. Now we've got ourselves a quality middle-order batsman who can also hit the ball a long way.

Dinesh Karthik: We've picked him as a middle-order batsman, it's a bonus that he keeps wickets. He fields quite well for someone who's spent a lot of time behind the stumps. He has the potential to be a very good international cricketer as a batsman.

The fringe players

Suresh Raina: Look at Suresh's record now and compare it with Tendulkar's record at the same stage, you'll find it's exactly the same. If you've heard some of the complimentary remarks made about Suresh from teams such as Australia, you wouldn't be critical of him.

VRV Singh: VRV Singh is as good a cricketer as Craig McDermott, Merv Hughes and Carl Rackemann when they came into the Australian team. Morne Morkel played at Durban and didn't create any more opportunities than VRV did. But the catches were taken and he finished up with 3-4 wickets, VRV had one. Both will be fine bowlers
for their country.

RP Singh: Once he came to me and asked, "Why am I not being picked? Is it because I'm not fast, or tall, or this or that?" I said it's none of it. You're part of a development process and the best thing is go back to UP and get some success. This is your apprenticeship at the moment."

Venugopal Rao: I think his performance in last year's Challenger Trophy as captain of India A was exceptional. It's a great shame he hasn't been able to continue his development as a captain. Good leaders don't come in large lumps and we saw an outstanding leader there. He didn't do badly but not good enough to push past others.