India will miss street-smart Praveen kumar : Dhoni

Bangalore, Feb 10 (IBNS) India cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni said onThursday that the team would miss “street-smart” Praveen Kumar in the World Cup.

The medium pacer was ruled out of World Cup because of an elbow injury which he sustained during the South Africa tour.

He has been replaced with fast bowler Shantakumaran Sreesanth.

“It is very unfortunate that Praveen had to miss the World Cup. He featured consistently in the ODIs for us. He is a street-smart cricketer and we will miss him a lot,” Dhoni told reporters here.

“But you can’t really restrict injuries from happening to players,” he said.

Dhoni also said some key players had recovered from injury and would be totally fit for the tournament-opener against Bangladesh in Dhaka on February 19.

“A few players are suffering from slight niggles, which is always there but nothing serious. Hopefully, nothing major happens to any player,” the skipper said.

Dhoni also said he was happy with the World Cup schedule, which has come in for its share of criticism from some quarters for its length which spans around 45 days.

“As I have said earlier, it is very difficult to form a perfect schedule and format. A tournament schedule will be either too long or too short but I am quite happy with the schedule. It will give us time to recover from small niggles,” he said.