The injury woes ahead of the World Cup are swelling at rocket pace. While Australia have lost two crucial cogs of their squad in Michael Hussey and Nathan Hauritz, England have lost Eoin Morgan. All lethal blows.

Sreesanth said he doesn’t want to “mess up with god-sent opportunity”. Will he get enough chances to make the most of it?

India hasn’t been spared. Praveen Kumar has been ruled out of the tournament after failing to recover from an elbow injury which forced him to return mid-way from the ODI series in South Africa.

MS Dhoni has, time and again, expressed his fondness for the seamer, who can be unplayable in the first 15 overs when the ball is swinging under lights. Dhoni also talks fondly about Praveen’s canny variation of pace and the ability to hit the deck hard even at his far from express pace. The Indian captain feels Praveen’s is a huge loss to India, and rightly so, given that most of the matches will be day-nighters.

But as it often is, one man’s agony is another man’s joy. Santhakumaran Sreesanth was gutted after he was ignored for the marquee event. And he was entitled to feel that way because he hadn’t done much wrong to deserve the snub. However, his dream of playing the World Cup is on the verge of being realised now. He was a part of the 2007 event, which turned out to be a horror show for India.

There were questions raised on Sreesanth’s exclusion from the original squad, most notably, by former India captain Sourav Ganguly. The pacer from Kerala does bring in a hint of speed in the attack that is otherwise packed with line-and-length bowlers. Though his pace may not be rewarded with desired results on the slow sub-continental tracks, his lethal outswinger delivered with perfect seam position will be more than helpful. And though, it will be a tough ask, if he can get the white ball to reverse a bit, along with Zaheer, he can add further value.

However, while one can safely say that had Praveen made it to the World Cup, he would’ve been a surety in the playing XI, it cannot be said about Sreesanth. Dhoni has at times been averse to including the temperamental speedster, the ODI series in the Rainbow nation being the latest instance. From the attack’s balance point of view, it will not be a bad idea to give him a couple of games up-front simply because he adds spice to the attack. He will go for runs but will run in hard and look to make thing happen in unfavourable conditions.