India coach Gary Kirsten is confident his side can cope without batsman Virender Sehwag in the upcoming tri-nations series in Sri Lanka.
Coach confident his side can rise to the top of ODI tree
India coach Gary Kirsten is confident his side can cope without batsman Virender Sehwag in the upcoming tri-nations series in Sri Lanka.
Sehwag will miss the Compaq Cup series which also involves New Zealand due to a shoulder injury he sustained during the Indian Premier League in May, and will not be available for the ICC Champions League either.
But Kirsten feels the team has enough depth with a number of younger players looking to establish themselves in the one-day side.
"We have set our goals in terms of what we want to achieve in the next eight months," Kirsten said. "But certainly one of them is to become the best cricket team in the world.
"We are heading that way and we are very excited about the way we have gone about our task to get to that position.
High quality
"We know we have to continue to perform well as we continue the quest to be the best.
"Obviously missing someone like Sehwag is huge. He's a high-quality player and any team would love to have him in the mix.
"But I think we have got a lot of depth in our cricket at the moment. We have a good batting line-up which is flexible in the middle.
"I think we will try and mix it up a bit and some of the younger players have proven that they are capable of keeping their place in the team."
Kirsten can also welcome back veteran Rahul Dravid, and said: "It is great to have him in the side. With the sort of experience he brings, it's going to help the team.
Confident
"We won the last two series we played in Sri Lanka and we are confident. But we think ahead and not harping on past results.
"The six-week break (since the World Twenty20) was very important for us to get strong again and that's something we have worked very hard on in the last while.
"We have had to make sure the players are physically in good condition for the next eight months of intense cricket and I'm very happy with what I have seen on that side."
India squad: MS Dhoni, R Dravid, G Gambhir, Y Singh, S Tendulkar, D Karthik, P Kumar, H Singh, A Mishra, A Nayar, A Nehra, Y Pathan, S Raina, I Sharma, RP Singh.
