Cricket: Big names out but India still have plenty to Singh about

No Sachin Tendulkar, no Zaheer Khan, no Harbhajan Singh and no Gautam Gambhir - even without Daniel Vettori and Brendon McCullum, New Zealand's cricket stocks must have risen in the triangular series in Sri Lanka which starts against India on Tuesday.

Logically, yes, but they now come up against, among others, a man with an awful lot to prove and an awfully destructive bat when he sets his mind to it - hard-hitting left-hander Yujrav Singh.

Still only 28, Singh has 7345 ODI runs at an average of just over 37 with a strike rate of 88.87. He is the fifth highest scorer of ODI runs in Indian history, only legendary names like Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid and Azharuddin rank above him.

For New Zealand, only Stephen Fleming (8037) has scored more one-day runs (and that at a lesser average and strike rate). Next closest is Nathan Astle with 7090 runs, again at a lower average and strike rate.

Singh is the son of a movie star who hit England pace bowler Stuart Broad for six sixes in the 2007 Twenty20 World Cup, the only top-international-on-top-international time this feat has ever been performed (Gary Sobers, Ravi Shastri and Herschelle Gibbs all did it against provincial opponents or, in Gibbs' case, against Holland).

So he can be highly destructive. Yet Singh's record against New Zealand is poor. In 24 innings against the Black Caps, he has scored only 373 runs at an 18.65 average, with a strike rate of just 63.54. He has made 50 only twice against the Black Caps, once in 2003 and the other a blazing 87 off 60 balls in Christchurch last year.

So why does Singh pose such a potential threat? Three reasons:

He is seeking to re-establish himself in the Indian side after being left out of the test team in the recent series against Sri Lanka and after being omitted from the ODI team after poor form earlier this year.

The demotion stung him - as did recent heckling during the test series against Sr Lanka when he carried the drinks out, only to be greeted with taunts of "water boy".

His star has dimmed because recent Indian analysis has decided that he is vulnerable against top-quality spin, leading to his omission from tests.

He remains, however, potentially devastating against pace bowling and New Zealand's battery of medium-quicks will need to maintain control against him. Ominously, that 87 in Christchurch last year came when Vettori was not playing and bowlers like Tim Southee, Kyle Mills, Jacob Oram, Grant Elliott and Jeetan Patel suffered as the Indians blazed to a large total. All are also in this triangular series.

However, India themselves are not flush with bowlers and the suspicion remains that the runs-fest tests between Sri Lanka and India could be followed by a similarly runs-rich one day tri-series.

Khan will be sorely missed and Ishant Sharma comes back into the side after a long ODI absence. The injured Harbhajhan Singh also leaves a large gap and left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha is nowhere near that class yet, while it is not known if promising offspinner R Ashwin will get a run against the Kiwis.

India's batting still looks formidable, however, even without Tendulkar and Gambhir. MS Dhoni, Virender Sehwag, Singh, Dinesh Karthik, new bat Suresh Raina (who has kept Yujrav Singh out of the test team), and even 21-year-olds Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja provide plenty of firepower - and between them have thousands of ODI runs.

The New Zealand squad is captained by Ross Taylor and will be built around batsmen Martin Guptill, Peter Ingram (in for the injured Jesse Ryder), BJ Watling and young hope Kane Williamson; all-rounders Elliott, Nathan McCullum, Oram, Scott Styris, wicketkeeper Gareth Hopkins and bowlers Mills, Andy McKay, Patel, Southee and Daryl Tuffey.