09 December 2004	Thursday	26 Shawwal 1425

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window).

DHAKA, Dec 8: Dispelling doubt the Indian team's tour of Bangladesh, a 15-member team led by Saurav Ganguly, arrived on Wednesday amid tight security to play two Tests and three One-day Internationals against the latter.

The uncertainty about the tour loomed large after a self-proclaimed Bangladeshi group reportedly threatened in a hand-written message to the Indian High Commission in Dhaka to kill the Indian cricketers.

Subsequently, the Board for Control of Cricket in India on Sunday held up the tour after the threat and Delhi sent a security review team to Dhaka on Monday to assess whether it was safe for the cricketers to go through the tour. The security review team gave the go-ahead on Tuesday.

On his arrival, Ganguly played down security fears and said his team was focused on playing tough cricket to improve its international ranking. "We want to win both the ODIs and Test series," he said. "We have just arrived and do not know much about the security measures here. However, we are concentrating on cricket and nothing else."

Saurav said the Indians would not take the hosts lightly and try to play their best possible cricket. "Bangladesh are new in the Test cricket arena and need some time to settle down.

However, we will play our best possible cricket as we always stay motivated for Test matches. We won our last Test series against South Africa, which was good for the team, and hope that we will continue the winning spree here." Bangladesh have lost 29 and drawn three of their 32 Tests.

SQUAD: Sourav Ganguly (captain), Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Mohammad Kaif, Dinesh Karthik, Irfan Pathan, Zaheer Khan, Shib Paul, Gagandeep Singh, Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh, Murali Kartik.

REUTERS ADDS: The first Test between India and Bangladesh has been postponed by a day to Friday after the Indian team's arrival was delayed. The Bangladesh Cricket Board said it had not decided if the rest of the itinerary would be amended.

They were originally scheduled to land on Tuesday but the tour became uncertain after India's High Commissioner in Dhaka said on Sunday that the embassy had received a letter from Harkat-ul-Jihad group threatening the players.

India bounced back from a barren run by winning a two-test series 1-0 against South Africa last week. They had won the final test against Australia last month but lost the series 2-1.