Mumbai: Despite the loss in the One-day series to West Indies, Indian skipper Saurav Ganguly thinks India's preparations for the World Cup are on the right track and the upcoming tour of New Zealand would be the proper 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 a build-up for next year's World Cup in South Africa," Ganguly said on Monday at a function. Asked whether the 3-4 loss to the Windies in the One-day series had hurt the team's preparation for the World Cup, Ganguly said, "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 good performance during World Cup." He said the team was not concerned about the fast and bouncy tracks in South Africa since it has 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, West Indies and Sri Lanka and how well we adapt ourselves during the World Cup will count in the end," he said. The Indian team leaves on December 1 for a 47-day tour of New Zealand. Coming back to the series against West Indies, Ganguly said he was satisfied with the team's performance even though India lost the One-day series in the final 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," Ganguly said. He said injuries continued 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 the absence of left-arm seamer Zaheer Khan due to injury had affected the team's bowling department during the series against 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 and once we get together to full strength, we should be doing better," he said. Ganguly released miniature figurines of eleven Indian cricketers at a function organised by Colgate. Also present during the 'Collect-Your-Cricketer' promotion campaign were vice-captain Rahul Dravid, leg spinner Anil Kumble, Virender Sehwag, Ashish Nehra, Mohammed Kaif, Zaheer Khan, Yuvraj Singh, Ajit Agarkar and Dinesh Mongia. Dravid said it would be a good campaign for kids who love to collect their favourite cricketers' figurines. "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."
Extras:
Srinath dropped, Kumble opts out; Ratra back

Tags: cricket, mumbai, west indies, indian skipper saurav ganguly, india, new zealand, world cup in south africa, south africa, england, sri lanka.