India-Sri Lanka teams arrive for first one-dayer

Kolkata -- The Indian and Sri Lankan teams arrived in the city to a rousing welcome by thousands of cricket fans in the city, jubilant over the choice of Eden Gardens as the venue for the match and all agog to watch Sourav Ganguly back in action in home turf.

The Indian players have been arriving in batches since Monday night for the Feb 8 match. The Sri Lankans landed at 12.40 p.m. from Mumbai.

Munaf Patel came Monday night, while skipper Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble, Robin Uthappa and S. Sreesanth reached here from Bangalore Tuesday morning. Soon after Harbhajan Singh and Virender Sehwag arrived from Delhi.

Team management said all players in the 15-member squad, except Sachin Tendulkar, Zaheer Khan and Ajit Agarkar, were already in town. The three Mumbai cricketers are arriving in the evening.

With the Board of Control for Cricket in India shifting the match from Pune to the city with very little time left, an acute shortage of rooms has forced organisers to house the rival teams in two different hotels.

The Indian team reached the ground and practised for some two hours. They mainly took a fielding session under Coach Greg Chappell.

While Munaf Patel, Irfan Pathan, Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh and Sreeshanth took high catches in a batch, the next batch had Robin Uthappa, Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, Zaheer Khan and Yuvraj Singh.

Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan also batted at the nets.