'Sachin To Continue At No. 4'

Indian captain Saurav Ganguly tonight said star batsmanSachin Tendulkar would continue to play at number four in the interest of theteam and flayed critics for putting needless pressure on the master blaster byhighlighting his rare failures.

'Sachin is a quality player. It's good for the teamthat he bats at no. 4,' Ganguly told the media after the ICC Champions trophyfinal against Sri Lanka in which Tendulkar batted one-drop.

The skipper cited Tendulkar's performance in England inthe Nat West triangular one-day series also involving Sri Lanka to contend thathe fitted into the number four slot very well. "He knows that it's good forthe team that he bats at no.4".

Tendulkar, who has over 11,000 runs in his 300 one-dayers,with 33 centuries under his belt, had said two days ago that he would prefer toopen the innings, but that he had accepted his allotted position in the middleorder in the interest of the team.

'He hasn't expressed the desire to me,' Ganguly said. 'Peoplewho put pressure on him should realise that we need to win as a team as well,'Ganguly argued. However, he had a different explanation for why Tendulkar battedat number three today.

He said there was 'some unnecesary pressure' onTendulkar because he did not get many runs in two previous matches. 'The ideawas that he should get some runs when the ball was hard.

'We thought if he got a few boundaries, the pressurewould be off him,' Ganguly said, adding that Tendulkar would have batted at theno.3 slot if he had had a chance to bat yesterday.

The match was abandoned due to rain and was replayedtoday, with the result being the same.

Ganguly was unhappy that detractors of Tendulkar usedan occasional failure or two to run down his form, describing it as unnecesarypressure on a man whose record spoke for itself.

'We have to stop picking individuals and making themstars. We need to pick an eleven and back them,' he said.

Regarding the ICC Champions Trophy rule that arain-affected much should be played afresh on a reserve day, Ganguly felt thatcarrying over an affected match instead of playing a fresh match from scratchwould be better system.

He, however, was happy with the tournament format whichwas different from the knock out structure of the previous ICC trophy additions.he also described the experiment on expanded use of television technology foraiding umpiring decisions as a 'success'. 'It went pretty well. It didn't delaythe game much.'

Ganguly had a word of regret for fast bowler JavagalSrinath, who flew in from England for the final, but had a poor day in the fieldyesterday. He was left out of the squad for today's match.

'It was unfortunate for Srinath who had less than a dayto prepare himself for the final,' the captain said.

He praised all his bowlers, saying Anil Kumble 'was athis best', while Zaheer Khan, Virender Sehwag and Harbhajan Singh were 'outstanding'.

Ganguly said he had decided come down the order to takeon the responsibility of playing off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan and askedDinesh Mongia to open to play himself in before facing the spinners.

'I have played him for six or seven years, while theyoungsters havn't played him much.'

Jayasuriya said earlier that he had expected Ganguly tocome down the order to take on the spinners.

Ganguly said India needed to work on their fast bowlingresources, While Sehwag's success as a spinner had given them the option of anextra slow bowler, 'we still want our seamers to do a good job'.

Srinath's decision to make himself avilable for testcicket was 'good news' for the team, and a good development for the team aheadof the series against West Indies, he said.

Jayasuriya said he did not think that Sri Lanka neededan extra batsman to bolster its middle order. He, however, did not think thatthe present side would form the nucleus of Sri Lanka's World Cup team.

"We need some 20 to 25 players to choosefrom", he said.

PTI