India favourite to World Cup 2011: Virender Sehwag

Virender Sehwag, India's Vice Captain for World Cup 2011 said that India is set to lift world cup 2011 in front of home crowd despite ongoing injuries and dip in form to some key players.

"I am not worried with all these (injuries and slump in form to some players). Sometimes you perform well and sometimes you don't…..These things happen in every player's career. I am not concerned," he said in an interview with a premier news channel.

Declaring himself fit for the biggest ongoing tournament, Virender said, 'he is fully fit and now going to the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore to spend a couple of days there to check his all round performance.'

Concerning over the inaugural high voltage match of world cup between India and Bangladesh set to begin on 19th February 2011 at Shere Bangla National Stadium, Mirpur, Bangladesh, Sehwag said, 'this time Indians will be cautious against the home team, as last time their victory had disturbed our equations’.

As it is known that in last world cup 2007, Bangladesh had beaten up India which prevented India to enter in the quarter finals.

'But this time we have to prepare well ….You can say it is a revenge game for us and we won't take the game lightly. We will give our best shot and we will come hard on Bangladesh', he added.

Commenting over India's chance in this world cup, he said, "We are playing in India and know the conditions better than other teams in our group. We know how wickets will behave."

Virender Sehwag is confident that India will do better in its Group - B against some major teams - South Africa, England and West Indies.

"West Indies, they have got good players in Kieron Pollard and Chris Gayle and if they click on, it's difficult for us but India has a very strong side in Sachin, Gambhir, Pathan, Kohli, Yuvraj, Dhoni and Raina. I am looking forward to see Yusuf Pathan in this World Cup," he said.

Indian Selectors had declared the 15-men squad for World Cup 2011 when India was in South Africa playing 5-Match ODI series with it. India had lost the series by 2-3.

The major concern about India is its injured players and bad in form to some key players like Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, and even captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

Here is the list of players for World Cup Squad, 2011:

MS Dhoni (c/wk), Virender Sehwag (vc), Gautam Gambhir, Sachin Tendulkar, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, Yusuf Pathan, Virat Kohli, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Praveen Kumar, Ashish Nehra, Munaf Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin and Piyush Chawla.

India is in Group-B with South Africa, England, West Indies, Bangladesh, Ireland, Netherlands.