Seamers asked to save themselves from injury, says Dhoni

The erratic form of Indian seamers in the lead up to the World Cup does not concern Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni as they had been instructed not to exert themselves in the warm-up matches.

The Indian pace attack, without the experienced Zaheer Khan, managed to take only three wickets between them while going for plenty of runs in the two practice games against Australia and New Zealand.

"It is important for us to have our best seamers for the first game," Dhoni said referring to India's opening match of the World Cup against Bangladesh on Saturday.

"That's one of the reasons why we have asked them to not give in that extra effort... save themselves for the league stages.

"Maybe that's one of the reason for the display," added Dhoni, who scored a blistering 108 off just 64 balls as India easily beat New Zealand in their final warm-up match in Chennai on Wednesday.

The Indian pace battery of Ashish Nehra, Shanthakumaran Sreesanth and Munaf Patel were allowed to bowl only 24.1 overs between themselves in the two warm-up games to avoid injuries.

India has already lost paceman Praveen Kumar to an elbow injury before the World Cup and Zaheer is known to be prone to niggles.

Zaheer was not risked for India's practice matches and will, in all probability, take the field against Bangladesh on Saturday.

The captain, though, was optimistic that the seamers will put on a better show once the actual tournament kicks off.

"I am pretty much sure that with the talent they have got and when they start putting in their 100 percent effort, the results are going to be very different," he said.