The announcement of the 15-member Indian team for the cricket World Cup has brought both happiness and annoyance for the fans and family members of cricketers.
Parents of fast bowler Shanthakumaran Sreesanth distributed sweets and offered thanks giving prayers at temples after their son made it to the World Cup squad.
"Inclusion into the World Cup team (was a dream) that came true and he has to perform well during the World Cup," he said.
Savitri Devi, his mother, said it was always his dream to be part of a World Cup winning team.
"His dream is to bring the World Cup to India. Please pray for that dream," she said
The 24-year-old fast bowler from Kerala has so far played 26 One-Day Internationals (ODI) and taken 34 wickets with 6 for 55 being his best performance. In Test cricket, he has taken 37 wickets from just eight matches.
Inclusion of another pacer Munaf Patel brought happiness to his Ikhar village in Gujarat.
"The entire village is celebrating after his name came in the World Cup squad. By God's grace, he will bowl very well and take wickets for India," said Maqbool Kankana, the village head.
The 22-year-old pacer has taken 21 wickets from 16 ODIs.
Patel and Sreesanth would be making their World Cup debut along with Karnataka opener Robin Uthappa, wicketkeepers Mahendra Dhoni and Dinesh Karthik and paceman Irfan Pathan.
Meanwhile, fans of batsman Mohammad Kaif and Suresh Raina were irked over their exclusion from the team.
The fans of these two Uttar Pradesh players alleged that this was a strategy of national selectors for not taking any player from the State.
"We want that at least one player of Uttar Pradesh should be in the Indian cricket team. Mohammad Kaif and Suresh Raina are good players and they should have been selected in the team," said Ankur, a fan.
"Mohammad Kaif is not taken in the team. It is not good because he is a good fielder as well as good batsman. If they (selectors) are seeing bad performance, Sehwag has also not done well and there should be at least one Uttar Pradesh player in the team," said Harish, another fan.
As a mark of their protest against the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and its selection committee, they burnt effigies board president Sharad Pawar and chief selector Dilip Vengsarkar.
The Indian team leaves for the Caribbean on March 1 and will play two warm-up matches before first group match against Bangladesh on March 17 at the Queen's Park Oval in Port of Spain. Sri Lanka and Bermuda are other two teams in this group. Indian squad: Rahul Dravid (captain), Ajit Agarkar, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wicket keeper), Sourav Ganguly, Harbhajan Singh, Dinesh Karthik, Zaheer Khan, Anil Kumble, Munaf Patel, Irfan Pathan, Virender Sehwag, Sreesanth, Sachin Tendulkar, Robin Uthappa and Yuvraj Singh
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