India and Zimbabwe ready for crucial 'Pool of Death' tie

It is the cricketing equivalent of the soccer World Cup's Group of Death. Pool Two sees India, Zimbabwe and England slog it out for a semi-final berth, and the action heats up for this group on Saturday as India and Zimbabwe attempt to set the turf on fire at the Premadasa stadium.

On the opening day of the ICC Champions Trophy, Pakistan succumbed to Sri Lanka's all-round show, and a confident India would not want to suffer a similar fate. Zimbabwe, with all the turmoil back home, could probably also do with the therapy a win affords. Heath Streak, a beleaguered skipper if there ever was one, has said more than once that he just wanted to focus on the game. Whether Zimbabwe can be clear-headed, let alone reach that elusive "zone" sportsmen constantly refer to in the heat of battle, remains to be seen.

The Zimbabwe-India encounter, however, is clearly one where the form book means little. The men from Africa have the talent - the Flower brothers, Streak, Travis Friend and Ray Price with the ball - to shock the best in the world on their day. It goes without saying that India is the sort of team that can completely lose the plot from time to time, and Zimbabwe would do well to remember that their opponents have even lost to Kenya in their one-day past.

On his part, Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly refused to underestimate Zimbabwe. "They are no pushovers. They are a very good one-day side, and we'll have to play well to beat them," said the skipper.

Interestingly enough, these two teams have seen plenty of each other in recent times; in fact, for one particular stretch, they played each other in three Test series over the course of little more than a year. Zimbabwe did fare handily enough in a recent one-day series in India, leading 2-1 before losing 3-2. Ganguly explained that away saying, "We were a much-depleted side when we last played Zimbabwe at home. We had four or five of our players injured. We're a full-strength side now."

For India, the past year has been an extremely successful one in the shorter version of the game. As Ganguly reminded gathered press personnel at Colombo, "We're a much improved side. Over the last one and a half years, we've played really good cricket. We're still so close and yet so far from winning a Test series overseas, but our one-day performances have been very good. We've won 80 percent of our one-day tournaments in the last year or so."

India's recent successes have been made possible largely by virtue of some clever team composition. Whether it was coach John Wright or Ganguly who decided that Rahul Dravid must keep wicket in order to let the think-tank pick an extra batsman, we don't know. But it has worked, and Dravid has fitted the role of a one-day cricketer more since he donned the gloves.

Some say the fact that Dravid contributes behinds the stumps reduces the pressure when he bats. Others argue that the sheer mental and physical strain of doing both jobs is too much for Dravid. But if you ask the man himself, he sits somewhere between the two extremes.

"As long as doing both can produce results, it's fine," said Dravid. "Initially I felt a bit worried about whether I'd be able to do the job or not, but as the results came in it got easier. We've won a lot of games where I've kept, and the confidence has come from that. It makes you feel good when you win the game. The debate will go on for a long time about whether it is the right move or not, but that's not important. If the results are good, you don't have to worry about what sort of combination you have."

That is of course true. In Indian cricket, everyone loves a winner, and you can get away with murder as long as you are winning. But one must view this ploy with a touch of skepticism if India have even stopped looking for a specialist keeper for the long run. Dravid is a keen student of the game and will do his best, one can be sure of that. "I admit it's going to be a challenge keeping to the spinners in these conditions. I don't claim to be a regular wicket-keeper who can do amazing things. All I can say is that I'm going out and giving it my best and working pretty hard at it too. Keeping the World Cup in mind, it will be a learning curve for me."

India may be looking to the World Cup already, but their opponents train their eyes on matters close at hand. "We are underdogs against both sides as per usual. England are playing well at the moment and still have the basis of a good side, despite their injuries, and India are a formidable side and a really difficult proposition," said Andy Flower. The man who has made runs by the bucketful against India also warned that Zimbabwe's bowling attack - medium-pace, as well as the spin of Grant Flower, Douglas Marillier and Ray Price - could be a handful in these conditions.

The wicket at the Premadasa stadium is slow and has enough in it for the spinners, so few will be surprised if there is little of the slam-bang sort of cricket the subcontinent is so famous for. It might be a case where, to borrow one of Nasser Hussain's favourite phrases, "turgid cricket" rules.