Coming up India Vs Australia ODI, 2007/08

Just One and half a day to go to kick off hard rocking Australia tour of India. In this tour Australia will take part on seven ODI and one Twenty20 matches against recent world cup twenty20 champion, India.

On the eve of this tournament Australia already arrived in India and Ricky Ponting, the captain of Australia in his first press conference of the tour was all about pressure - pressure on India given their recent successes, the pressure of accommodating senior players into a settled side, the pressure of the one-day format, the on-field pressure typically exerted by the Australian style of cricket.

He(Ponting) told the press at a Bangalore hotel on Thursday that India definitely deserved twenty20 and they thoroughly deserve to come back as champions but that's finished now. "We've got to look at the seven games we have here in India and we know what we have to do to win on the subcontinent. If anything now, a bit of the pressure will come back on the Indians," He added.

India add their three most senior and master player, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly as well as India paceman Zaheer Khan also added to the squad who was promoted two rungs to the elite category in the Indian cricket board's new central contracts announced on Thursday.

So there was a question on the press that What impact would the return of India's three senior batsmen - Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly - have on the team and the series? "Three very good and experienced players coming back will obviously add a bit to the Indian team. But the one thing that stood out for all of us, looking at the Indian team throughout the Twenty20, was the amount of youthfulness they had in the team. It's been well-documented that they fielded well all tournament and I think it's a fresh outlook on the game. The thing for us is that we've play against those guys a lot [Dravid, Ganguly, Tendulkar] and we should know their strengths and weaknesses very well. If anything, it'll probably make it a lot easier for us to play India with those guys in the team." He(Ponting) said.

"India are the world Twenty20 champions, we're the test and the world 50-over champions and we've 50-over cricket coming up." He added.

He also said that if we can score 200 in a Twenty20 game why can't we score 400 in a 50-over game? and if we get some really good conditions here we'll see some good scores.

So there will be certainly a good cricket coming up.

Team India:
MS Dhoni(captain+wicket keeper), Rahul Dravid, Gautam Gambhir, Sourav Ganguly, Harbhajan Singh, Dinesh Karthik, Zaheer Khan, Irfan Pathan, Piyush Chawla, Ramesh Powar, Rudra Pratap Singh, S Sreesanth, Sachin Tendulkar, Robin Uthappa, Yuvraj Singh.

Team Australia:
Ricky Ponting (c), Adam Gilchrist (vc), Nathan Bracken, Stuart Clark, Michael Clarke, Brad Haddin, Matthew Hayden, Ben Hilfenhaus, Brad Hodge, Brad Hogg, James Hopes, Mitchell Johnson, Brett Lee, Andrew Symonds, Adam Voges, Michael Hussey, Shaun Tait, Shane Watson.

Dhoni India's New ODI Captain

After resigning of Rahul Dravid, Mahendra Singh Dhoni is selected as a new One day international captain for the cricket nation of India. Dhoni is now leading India's twenty20 team.

The career of Dhoni s improving rapidly after joining with the ODI squad. Rising continued with his appointment on Tuesday as captain of India's one-day team for the home series against Australia and Pakistan. The selector also picked the squad for the first three ODIs against Australia, bringing in Harbhajan Singh and Irfan Pathan but finding no place for Virender Sehwag.

Selector Vengsarkar said "He would have three former captains in the ranks who would give him full support. You are talking about having three captains - Azharuddin had five former captains under him when he led India in England," .

The key points in the selection of the 15-man squad were the return of Harbhajan and Pathan, the continued absence of Virender Sehwag and the dropping of Ajit Agarkar, Munaf Patel and Rohit Sharma from the side that toured England.

After appointment Dhoni said he was aware of the pressure and challenges that come with it. With PTI Dhoni told "I just heard the news in the afternoon and haven't had the time to reflect on that since I am preparing for the twenty20 games against England and South Africa,".

The career of Dhoni for one-day start in December 2004. He has scored 2477 runs in 84 ODIs at an average of 44.23 and a strike rate of 96.26. His highest score, an unbeaten 183 against Sri Lanka in 2006, is a record for a wicketkeeper and also the record for the most runs scored by a batsman while chasing. Dhoni had also occupied the top batsman's spot in the ICC one-day rankings in April 2006. Dhoni was the vice-captain of the ODI team on the tour of England.

Profile of Mahendra Singh Dhoni

Full Name: Mahendra Singh Dhoni
Nick : Dhoni, Mahi
Date of Birth : July 7, 1981
Place of birth : Ranchi, Jharkhand.
Profession: Cricketer.


Major Teams: Team India, Bihar, Jharkhand.
Batting Style: Right Hand Bat
Other: Wicket-Keeper
Test Debut: Versus Sri Lanka in December 2005 in Chennai. Made Valuable 30 runs (India 168 all out, match-drawn).
ODI Debut: India Vs Bangladesh at Chittagong, 1st ODI, 2004/05

India one-day squad
Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt) ,Yuvraj Singh (vice-captain), Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Dinesh Karthik, Gautam Gambhir, Robin Uthappa, Irfan Pathan, Ramesh Powar, Piyush Chawla, RP Singh, Zaheer Khan, Sreesanth, Harbhajan Singh