Gautam Gambhir wishes good luck to Indian athletes for London Olympics

The Indian cricket team may be in the midst of a one-day series with Sri Lanka, but their thoughts are with the members of the Indian Olympic squad in London, says a report in The Times Of India, adding that on Friday, opener Gautam Gambhir wished the Indian contingent all the luck in their effort to garner their biggest-ever haul at an Olympics.

Gambhir refused to predict how many medals he expected the Indians to win in London. "When I can't predict what will happen in Saturday's (third ODI) match here, how can I predict the number of medals our athletes will win? But from my personal experience, I can tell you that representing the country itself is the greatest achievement and honour for any sportsperson. There is no player who would not give off his best."

Gambhir was also happy to see the media giving so much importance to Olympics. "Why only cricket, we would like to see all other sports flourish in our county. As a cricketer surely I am happy that my sport is so popular in India, but other sports need to be encouraged and made popular too. So I am happy that the media back home is taking interest in Olympics, "Gambhir added.

Another report in Times Of India, Gautam Gambhir feels Team India's batting collapse in the second match against Sri Lanka at Hambantota was a wake-up call at the start of a long, busy season. "In the first match we scored well over 300 runs, but were brought down to earth in the next game," he said.

"We started the series with a bang after a rest of almost two months following the IPL, which was a good sign that the team was not rusty. But the batting collapse in the second game will ensure that we will not be complacent and be alert to the requirements of international pressure."

Meanwhile Deccan Herald writes that the Indian cricket team will aim to pick up the pieces after a disastrous performance in the last match and get their campaign back on track when they take on hosts Sri Lanka in the third ODI to be held here on Saturday. After a couple of contrasting performances in the two matches at Hambantota where the Men in Blue first won comfortably by 21 runs before being soundly thrashed by nine wickets, the action moves to the familiar territory of Premadasa Stadium here.

Skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni is not very fond of tinkering with his playing XIs but he now seriously needs to think as to how many more chances does Rohit Sharma deserve in order to prove that he is a regular match-winner like Virat Kohli or even fairly consistent on sub-continental tracks like Suresh Raina. The Mumbai batsman had scores of 1 and 0 in the first two matches where he was out in identical fashion.