COLOMBO, July 23: India arrived here on Saturday with a new cricket captain and coach confident of winning the upcoming triangular one-day series despite the absence of star batsmen Sachin Tendulkar and Saurav Ganguly.

Tendulkar, the world’s leading scorer in one-dayers with 13,642 runs, has been ruled out of the tournament following an elbow surgery.

Regular captain Ganguly, provisionally included in the squad, is doubtful as he is serving a six-match ban for his team’s slow over-rate in a home one-day series against Pakistan in April.

A decision on his suspension is expected to be announced next week.

Dravid, leading India in his first full series, said his team had the resources to succeed even without the experienced duo.

“There is still a lot of quality in our batting,” Dravid said before the team’s departure from Chennai.

“Both Saurav and Sachin are experienced players. It (their non-availability) gives an opportunity to some of the other guys to show they can play at this level.”

All-rounder Suresh Raina and middle-order batsman Venugopal Rao are the uncapped players in the team.

“The composition of the side gives us the option to play whatever combination we like,” said Dravid, whose team meet the hosts at Dambulla on July 30 and the West Indies the following day.

“We do have two specialist spinners in Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh. If the conditions permit, we might play both of them or it will be three pacemen and one spinner.”

New Indian coach Greg Chappell said his team needed to show consistency if they aimed to begin the fresh season on a bright note.

“Our aim in the series is to play consistent cricket,” said Chappell, former Australian Test captain.

“The players will have to do the basics right day in, day out. If they can do that, the outcome will look after itself.”

Squad: Rahul Dravid (captain), Virender Sehwag (vice-captain), Vangipurappu Laxman, Yuvraj Singh, Mohammad Kaif, Jai Prakash Yadav, Suresh Raina, Venugopal Rao, Mahender Dhoni, Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh, Irfan Pathan, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Lakshmipathy Balaji, Saurav Ganguly.—AFP