No team is the favourite: Dravid

Colombo: Team India arrived in Colombo on Friday night but had to drop their plans of evening nets because of monsoon showers.

The other two teams in the tri-series -- South Africa and Sri Lanka also canceled their warm-up match because of heavy rains.

It started raining early on Thursday evening and continued throughout the night and well into Friday morning and the Indian cricketers spent their time indoors relaxing in the swimming pool.

Addressing a press conference Indian skipper Rahul Dravid said his team's emphatic series victory when it last met Sri Lanka would not give them any psychological advantage in the upcoming tri-series since the hosts were very difficult opponents at home.

India had thrashed the Lankans 6-1 at home in October last year, but Dravid said their Asian rivals had come a long way since then.

"I don't believe in such things as psychological advantage. The 6-1 win was a long time ago and lot of water has gone under the bridge," Dravid said.

"All three teams start on even footing and it will be a matter of who gets used to the conditions fast and better," he added.

Dravid said India would find their task that much harder as the Lankan team has been on a roll with good performances in England followed by the 2-0 Test series win over South Africa and the African team themselves were not an easy opponent.

"Sri Lanka have played well recently and the series in England has given them confidence. They have the momentum going and they are specially formidable at home," he said.

"South Africa are ranked No 2 in the world. They have some explosive players and in the last two years, if you look at their record, they have been second only to Australia. They even successfully chased a target of 434," Dravid said.

Dravid said handling the middle overs in batting would be one of the key areas for India's success.

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"We did well against the same set of spinners when they came to India, hopefully we can do well here as well. The key is to bat well in the middle overs. One of the areas where we failed last time was that we did not play bowlers like Tillekaratene Dilshan and Sanath Jayasuriya well."

Dravid, however, warned about the danger of focusing only on tackling Sri Lanka's spearhead Muttiah Muralitharan.

"We have played Murali in the past. He is a difficult bowler, especially at home under lights. So, the strategy for teams coming here has been about playing Murali. But we cannot focus on one bowler. They also have Chaminda Vaas and Dilhara Fernando, and Lasith Malinga has also been bowling well. We tend to forget that there is the whole South African team to be dealt with."

No pressure on Irfan

Dravid also denied Irfan Pathan was being subjected to "too much workload" and said the hype over his brief loss of form was only because he had raised the expectations of everyone by his performances.

He dismissed Pathan's own reported comments to a television channel that by asking to open the batting as well as bowling, the team was leaving too much on his plate.

"I am not sure if Irfan had said that, but from whatever conversation I have had with him, I could say that he had never felt the workload was too much on him," Dravid said.

"I can say that Irfan had always enjoyed and relished the challenge. People should remember that he missed out only on Test cricket," the skipper said, referring to Pathan sitting out of three Tests on the recent tour of the West Indies.

"He hasn't missed a One-Dayer. He is an integral part of our team. At this age (that Pathan is), you want to be given chances to showcase your skills. Pathan has probably had so much success that he has created such expectations of himself.

"That happens when you set such high standards for yourself."

(With inputs from PTI)