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NEWS Cricket World Cup 2007>India departing for Caribbean with high hopes 28th Feb 2007 16.10 IST By Agencies The Indian team is winging its way tonight to the West Indies for the World Cup carrying a billion hopes and prayers of the country's cricket-crazy fans. The game's followers are anxious to see Rahul Dravid 's team emulate Kapil's Devils of 1983 by returning home with cricket's biggest catch.
The crowning piece of that brilliant display was the toppling of two-time world champions - the all-conquering West Indies - from their pedestal in a memorable final at Lord's. That team did not have the burden of expectations as the cricket fans in the country then were yet to be bewitched by the shortened form of the game. The players themselves did not believe they had the wherewithal to conquer the world and were thus able to perform without the added pressure of a billion expectations. The triumphant run of that team - despite a few hiccups on the way - has since transformed the lukewarm interest of the fans in the one-day game into something akin to religious following. It is this extreme pressure that Dravid's team will have to surmount as well as the tough opposition on the field in the West Indies to make its tryst with eternal glory. Anything less than a title triumph will be considered a failure, perhaps unfairly, by the vast majority of the fanatic followers of the game in the country. Four years ago the Indian cricketers, many of whom are part of the present squad, had a bitter experience of what a poor run could lead to in the form of a violent backlash from fans back home. The house of Mohammad Kaif , who is not part of the current team, was even stoned by irate fans after the Sourav Ganguly -led squad huffed and puffed to beat minnows Netherlands in the opening league match and then lost timidly to Australia. Coming as it did after the team's disastrous outing in New Zealand a few months earlier, the fans' anger knew no bounds. Sachin Tendulkar , who was later named the Player of the 2003 World Cup in South Africa, even had to utter a public statement that the squad would try its level best to return home with the Cup to assuage the hurt feelings back home. There was a dramatic turnaround in its performance thereafter and the team went all the way to the final before bowing to the superior all-round skills of Ricky Ponting-led Australia. The fans then were quite satisfied with the vastly improved performance of the team even though it lost in the final, but the hype surrounding the current team is such that many followers expect an Indian summer in the Caribbean. Coach Greg Chappell and captain Dravid have built a squad that seems well-rounded in batting and bowling, with a fair number of players keen and available to perform multiple tasks, somewhat similar to the utility members of Kapil Dev's 1983 team. India, pooled in Group B with Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Bermuda, start their Cup campaign with a tie against Bangladesh at Port-of-Spain on March 17 after playing warm-up games against The Netherlands (March 6) and West Indies (March 9). "I think we are in as good a position as we could hope to be. We have a good, balanced squad, good experience combined with youth. We have good variety in bowling and batting that would give us a wide range of options no matter what the conditions or the opposition", Chappell said at the pre-departure media conference in Mumbai on Tuesday. "We go with confidence and with plenty of hope. We have got cover for all the key players and the key positions. We have got flexibility in bowling and batting." "We have got a squad we can expect to do well with. We have done all the preparations. But really now it's going to be about performance on the day in each game and that's where the pressure is going to be." "The pressure will be on and that's where our experience and flexibility are going to be very positive for us," the former Australian skipper said. Quite a few in the current team may not be around when the World Cup returns to the sub-continent in 2011, and the West Indian sojourn offers them the best chance to add the game's crowning jewel to their list of trophies. But as Chappell said so succinctly, the potential to adorn themselves with glory is there if the players withstand the pressure. Will it happen, is the all-important question. Also View In-Depth Coverage: Cricket World Cup 2007 Team Page: India Team Page: West Indies | LIVE CRICKET COVERAGE NEWS ~ Gilchrist has no plans to retire after World Cup ~ Ganguly's new batting approach may cost him sixer record ~ India 'squash the Orange' in World Cup warm-up game ~ Symonds gets a new hairdo for World Cup ~ Dhoni readies himself for stand-up act at World Cup (more in NEWS) FACE-TO-FACE ~ 500-mark a possibility in World Cup: Hayden ~ Minnows add charm to World Cup: Dravid (more in FACE-TO-FACE) COLUMNS ~ Will Sri Lanka replicate 1996 World Cup success? (more in COLUMNS) OFF-THE-FIELD ~ Ganguly again the darling of corporate world ~ Ganguly roped in as brand ambassador of Puma (more in OFF-THE-FIELD) PLAYERS Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble (more PLAYERS) TEAMS India, South Africa, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Australia, West Indies, Zimbabwe, England, New Zealand, Bangladesh, Kenya, Holland | 
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