Home side has psychological advantage, says Ganguly

Indian pace spearhead Javagal Srinath is likely to make a comeback to limited overs cricket with captain Sourav Ganguly hinting that the speedster would play in the opening one-day match against Australia at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium at Bangalore on Sunday.

Talking to the reporters on Saturday, the Prince of Kolkata said that Srinath, who has not played a one-day game after the 1999 World Cup in England, was fit and likely to play the day-night encounter tomorrow. The skipper added that India had a 'decent' bowling attack and Harbhajan Singh had given a new edge to it.

He said India enjoyed a psychological edge after their stunning victory in the Test series and expressed confidence of winning it too. But he also sounded a note of caution saying limited-overs cricket was a different ball-game and India had not played a one-day game in six months. Ganguly said "The Test series is over. It's past and the Australians are a pretty good one-day side. We have not played one-day game in the last six months." He added "We are confident but it's a new game. We have to start from scratch. One-day is a different ball game."

Dismissing suggestions that pressure of captaincy was taking a toll on his batting, the Bengal southpaw said he was simply undergoing a bad patch and it was only a matter of time before he struck form again. "Different people have different pressure. A new comer has pressure to retain his place in the team.... myself, Sachin (Tendulkar) and Rahul (Dravid) have pressure to keep up our reputation... people have certain expectations from us," he said.

Ganguly said the absence of Jason Gillespie, who returns after the Test series, will make things easier for Indian batsmen. "We now have only (Glenn) McGrath (to deal with)," he said.

Coach John Wright said the inclusion of some new players in the one-day side would obviously affect the batting order that was followed in the Tests but he did not believe it would be effected at the top meaning the stylish VVS Laxman could bat at number three slot in the one-dayers too.

Wright was all praise for Laxman who became the highest scorer for India in the Test series with an aggregate of 503 runs. Wright felt the Hyderabad batsman played ace Aussie leg-spinner Shane Warne better than anyone else in the world.