Colombo: The Indian cricket team goes into the 16-nation ICC under-19 World Cup in Colombo as the firm favourite and captain Ravikant Shukla said that his side was well prepared for the tournament. India's youth team was in terrific form last year winning 14 of its 16 matches and in conditions that are familiar it will be a hard unit to beat.

``There is not much pressure being the favourites. We are confident and we are well prepared for the tournament,'' Shukla told journalists at a media briefing in Colombo.

The 14-member Indian squad arrived in Colombo after a training camp in Chennai where it played three warm-up games. In Colombo, although India suffered an upset 28-run defeat at the hands of England on Thursday, it bounced back with a comprehensive six-wicket win over Australia on Friday.

Geared up

``We are happy with the preparation we have had leading up to the tournament. The training camp in Chennai was extremely successful. We had the camp there because we felt the weather and pitch conditions were similar to Sri Lanka,'' former fast bowler Venkatesh Prasad, the Indian coach said.

The tournament gets underway on Sunday and India's first game is scheduled for Monday when it plays lowly Namibia. Two days later it will take on Scotland and on February 10 will meet host Sri Lanka.

All games featuring India will be played at the R. Premadasa Stadium where Sri Lanka's Test side amassed a world record 952 runs against India in 1997. Prasad opened the bowling on that occasion.

``I still remember the Sri Lankans scoring almost 1000 runs against us at Premadasa, but that was a long time ago,'' Prasad said. ``They told me that the pitches had been re-laid,'' he added.

Despite having two ICC associate member sides in its group, Prasad said that India would take each and every game seriously. ``Whether we have got an easy draw or a tough one, we are not going to take it easy. The players know that each and every game is important. We respect our opponents,'' he said.

Fond memories

India won the under-19 World Cup in 2000 in Sri Lanka beating the host comprehensively and in familiar conditions it will be aiming for a repeat performance. India was beaten by Pakistan in the semifinals last year.

The Indian juniors had an amazing run last year when it beat England 4-1 and later Australia by the same margin before claiming the six-nation Afro-Asian Cup, winning six consecutive matches. However, all those games were played at home and it would be interesting to see how strong it is away from home.

The squad: Ravikant Shukla (capt.), Piyush Chawla (vice-capt.), Abu Nechim Ahmed, Saurabh Bandekar, Debabrata Das, Gaurav Dhiman, Ravindra Singh Jadeja, Shahbaz Nadeem, Mohnish Parmar, Cheteshwar Pujara, Pinal Shah, Rohit Sharma, Mayank Tehlan and Vijaykumar Yomahesh.

Manager: Dr. G. Natarajan. Coach: Venkatesh Prasad.

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