Curator promises better track for India-Sri Lanka clash

The Coca Cola Cup may have come alive last night after New Zealand's shock victory over India, but for the Asian sub-continent as a whole and Sri Lankan cricket fans in particular, the real action starts on Sunday when Sri Lanka takes on India for the first time.

The good news is that Premadasa curator, Susil Ananda, is confident the pitch will be far superior to the crumbling surface last night.

"The problem was too little grass," he revealed. "We will use two wickets for the next four games, but these have a better grass covering and should allow the batsmen to play more freely."

The ground authorities had not originally planned to re-use pitches, but were left with no other option after the three games in Dambulla were cancelled.

Indian captain Saurav Ganguly blamed last night's 84-run defeat on the pitch: "That was not the best one-day wicket to bat on. The ball was not coming onto the bat and that's going to make things difficult for the side batting second."

Certainly captains will now think twice before they elect to field first during the remaining games as both New Zealand on Wednesday and India on Friday struggled to time the ball on the dusty surface.

Unfortunately Ganguly will be flipping the coin against one of the best coin tossers in the game. Sanath Jayasuriya has a phenomenal tossing record in the Tests, where he has won it 12 times out of his last 13 games. In the one-day game he has won on the last three occasions.

Perhaps realising that Ganguly would be better served practicing his calling in his hotel room, the Indian team opted for optional nets this afternoon, though all the reserves will have to train.

It is unclear whether any changes will be made to the team. Yuvraj Singh may be one, but he performed creditably with the ball. He can expect a further chance before Amay Khurasia gets an opportunity.

Ashish Nehra and Zaheer Khan bowled well enough to keep Ajit Agarkar and Debashis Mohanty on the sidelines. Left arm spinner Rahul Sanghvi would be useful, but could only play at the expense of the spinning all rounders and that would weaken the batting.

Sri Lanka meanwhile practiced this morning and are in good spirits after their opening victory. Sanath Jayasuriya warned his team against complacency.

"Just because Sachin Tendulkar is not there we cannot relax," he said. "They have been playing well and have some experienced players. Ganguly may be out of touch, but he can come back and play a top innings at any time because he is a great player."

In fact Jayasuriya was quite disappointed with his side's performance against the Kiwi's: "I was not happy with the total we got against New Zealand and we have to put more runs on the board against India. It was not easy to play your shots, but even so we should have scored more than 220."

He defended the policy to play six batsmen: "It is very important to have all rounders in the side and if we had played an extra batsman then we would have lost a bowler. Suresh Perera made an important contribution, scoring 20 runs and taking that early wicket."

Sri Lanka are expected to name an unchanged side, though the wisdom of playing the trio of Sanath Jayasuriya, Avishka Gunawardene, and Romesh Kaluwitharana, all of whom play in the same cavalier manner, will be debated.