April 20, 2008	Sunday	Rabi-us-Sani 13, 1429

MUMBAI, April 19: Batting maestro and skipper of Mumbai Indians Sachin Tendulkar, who is down with a groin injury, is very keen to play the first match of the inaugural Indian Premier League (IPL) Twenty20 tournament against Bangalore Royal Challengers at the Wankhede Stadium on Sunday.

”Everyone connected with cricket knows how passionate Sachin is about the game. After watching the Team Kolkata and Team Bangalore match yesterday, he is bent upon playing tomorrow’s match even if he is 90 per cent fit. He is scheduled to have a fitness test later today with our team physio and we will take a final decision on him just before the match,” Mumbai coach Lalchand Rajput said on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Rajput also confirmed that apart from Tendulkar there were no injury scares in the Mumbai camp. “Former Indian seamer Ashish Nehra is declared fully fit. In fact Ashish played in all the practice matches so far and we have no other injury scares and all the players are looking forward to the first match,” Rajput, who successfully managed the Indian team to its Twenty20 World Cup victory last year, said.

Meanwhile, the Mumbai team has added more former Indian cricketers to their support staff. “We have summoned former Indian paceman Subroto Bannerjee, who is a level III coach and still plays grade cricket in Australia, to be our bowling coach while we have appointed Rahul Sanghvi as the team manager,” the former Indian opening batsman said.”(Former India stumper) Sameer Dighe, who is still fit as a fiddle, is our new fielding coach while Atul Bedade is our travel and logistics manager,” he added.—Agencies