Injury scare for Sreesanth, Praveen

Sreesanth has mild tennis elbow in his bowling arm, while Praveen aggravated an old injury to his right hand during Sunday’s Twenty20 international at the Moses Mabhida stadium when he hit his hand against the stumps in the process of delivering the ball. Both men, consequently, are in some doubt for at least the first one-day international at Kingsmead on Wednesday.

Neither man bowled at Monday evening’s practice session, interrupted towards the end by heavy showers. Praveen had his right hand severely bandaged while Sreesanth has been sporting an elbow brace for the last couple of days. “Sreesanth is recovering,” said team manager Ranjib Biswal, adding, “(But) Praveen is having trouble. We will take a final call tomorrow on whether or not they will play this match.”

There are enough pace bowling options available to Mahendra Singh Dhoni in the shape of Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra and Munaf Patel, but with the World Cup just round the corner, these injury woes are precisely the kind of developments the team could do without. A philosophical Dhoni, however, chose to put a positive spin on things, saying, “It’s better to have players get injured in the early part of the series rather than towards the end.”