DAREN GANGA IN FOR Ramnaresh Sarwan

Daren Ganga has been chosen as Ramnaresh Sarwan's replacement in the West Indies squad for the one-day series in Pakistan. Sarwan was ruled out of the series with a minor hairline fracture of the right foot, sustained when he was hit by an Umar Gul yorker during the Karachi Test. The one-day series starts on Tuesday, but West Indies' preparations were badly hit when their practice session at Karachi was cancelled due to rain.

Speaking to the media, Lara explained the inclusion of Ganga: "Ganga who is normally one of our Test players is here so we're going to try as much as possible to do a bit of experiment, especially since we do not have our full team here. We have a few guys who will get the opportunity, hopefully they will grab hold of it and make use of it because we are so close to the World Cup and I still feel there are a few places up for grabs for that particular tournament."

Lara insisted that the 2-0 Test defeat wouldn't affect their side going into the one-day series, a form of the game in which their form has been encouraging of late. "I don't think anyone has the psychological advantage. Of course Pakistan played well in the Test series and a lot of their players gained form during that period of time and of course they would feel that they have that psychological advantage but they are coming up against a team that has played much better in the one-day arena than the Test arena and I'm sure that they are fully aware of it.

"Getting to two finals [the DLF Cup and the Champions Trophy] against the best team in the world, Australia, was a good effort by us. We don't have any silverware to take home, losing both finals, but I think it's still early days, especially with the World Cup coming up and we've got an eye on that. We're looking to make whatever necessary changes and whatever implementation is needed for us to be successful but it's been good so far. The Test series was a bit disappointing but we've got to move on from here."

The weather forecast for Rawalpindi isn't encouraging, but Lara chose to look at the brighter aspects of the series: "We're looking forward to the game, we've got to prepare for the game, I know the weather isn't great but our focus is on the first one-day international tomorrow. If it does not take place then we move on from there. It's going to be an interesting series between two teams who are going to open the World Cup in 2007 in Jamaica. It's interesting cricket coming up."

 

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