Kiwi tour ideal W'Cup build-up: Ganguly

Despite losing the one-day series to the West Indies, India skipper Sourav Ganguly feels the team's preparations for the World Cup are on the right track, and the upcoming tour of New Zealand would be the ideal build-up for the big event.

"We have a balanced side, and with two Test matches and seven one-dayers to follow it should be the right kind of build-up for next year's World Cup in South Africa," said Ganguly, at a function, in Mumbai on Monday, where he released miniature figurines of 11 Indian cricketers.

Also present at the 'Collect Your Cricketer' promotional launch by Colgate, were vice-captain Rahul Dravid, leg-spinner Anil Kumble, Virender Sehwag, Ashish Nehra, Mohammed Kaif, Zaheer Khan, Yuvraj Singh, Ajit Agarkar and Dinesh Mongia.

Asked whether the 3-4 loss to the Windies in the one-day series hurt the team's World Cup preparations, Ganguly replied: "I don't think so."

"We are playing seven one-dayers in New Zealand and I hope we do well there so that we can be confident of a good performance during the World Cup."

He said the team is not worried about the fast and bouncy tracks in South Africa since it had done well on foreign tours in the last year-and-a-half.

"However, it is good to start as underdogs as there will be no extra pressure. We have done well in England, the West Indies and Sri Lanka and how well we adapt ourselves during the World Cup will count in the end," he added.

The Indian team leaves for the 47-day tour of New Zealand on December 1.

On the series against the West Indies, Ganguly said he is satisfied with the team's performance even though India lost the last match.

"It was a very close series. I think we did pretty well to win the three-match Test series 2-0. We lost the one-dayers 3-4 as we just did not play well in the final match, and also some of our players missed the one-day series due to injuries."

He said injuries continue to remain India's biggest concern before the World Cup.

"That is a major fear for us. Our trainer Adrian Le Roux has worked hard with the players and I hope we will be lucky enough to go without injuries till the end of the World Cup."

Ganguly said left-arm seamer Zaheer Khan's absence due to injury had affected the team's bowling department in the series against the West Indies.

"Zaheer is a strength to our side. His spell with the new ball and also during the death overs would have saved us loss of runs; once we get together to full strength, we should be doing better," he said.

Talking about the figurines, Dravid said it would be a good campaign for kids.

"When I was young I remember doing the same and enjoying every minute of it," he said. "In fact the figurine looks better than me."

Mail Cricket Editor