Defending champions West Indies and 2002 joint winners Sri Lanka consider themselves strong contenders to win the Champions Trophy -- provided they qualify for it.
The International Cricket Council's mega-event which features the 10 Test-playing nations for the only time outside the World Cup starts in India tomorrow in a new, more competitive format.
The West Indies and Sri Lanka have been forced to play Bangladesh and Zimbabwe in a round-robin qualifying tournament after being ranked below the top six on the cut-off date of April 1.
The top two qualifiers will join Australia, South Africa, India, Pakistan, New Zealand and England in the main tournament which ends on Nov. 5.
"I see it as a good way of going into the tournament," said West Indies captain Brian Lara, who considers qualifying matches as a blessing in disguise.
"Australia, England, and Pakistan will arrive for their first game, but we will already have had three games going in. That's a slight plus," he said.
Sri Lanka, who take on Bangladesh in the first match in Mohali, also deserved better, judging by their recent results.
A 5-0 rout of England in July, followed by a world record total of 443-9 against the Netherlands and a 2-0 Test sweep at home against South Africa showed the prowess of Mahela Jayawardene's side.
The Sri Lankans have recovered from a humiliating 6-1 defeat in India last October and coach Tom Moody stressed the lessons of the past had been learnt well.
"We are now a better, stronger unit. A lot of young guys have come and done well in international cricket. There is a significant improvement, especially in fielding," he said.
World champions Australia, who have never won the Champions Trophy despite back-to-back World Cup titles in 1999 and 2003, remain the team to beat.
"It's obviously one we want to win," said captain Ricky Ponting. "It is the second biggest one-day tournament in the world and it is one that has eluded Australia.
"We've played some good cricket in Indian conditions before so we can go there now with confidence," he said.
Australia have been drawn with England, hosts India and the second qualifier in group A where two teams will advance to the semi-finals.
The other group features South Africa, Pakistan, New Zealand and the first qualifier.
The tournament will be a chance for the contenders to pit their might ahead of the World Cup to be played in the Caribbean in March-April next year.
England, who defend the Ashes in Australia less than three weeks after the Champions Trophy, will use the month-long event to test the fitness of key players, including captain Andrew Flintoff.
All-rounder Flintoff, who missed most of the English summer after surgery on his left ankle, stressed he was fit and raring to go again.
"The 12-week rehab programme finishes in mid-October to coincide with the India trip," he said. "It's going well at the moment. Everything I've done has responded well to the operation."
South Africa, ranked second behind Australia, hope to use coach Mickey Arthur's pledge of playing "brave cricket" to win the tournament.
It was the "brave cricket" mantra that helped the Proteas score a then world record 438-9 to chase down a seemingly insurmountable Australian total at the Wanderers in Johannesburg in March.
Pakistan, a brilliantly talented but unpredictable side, are banking on pace spearhead Shoaib Akhtar and in-form batsman Mohammad Yousuf to win despite the absence of their banned captain Inzamam-ul-Haq.
India are not to be discounted on home turf despite winning just one of their last nine matches, while Stephen Fleming's New Zealand are always a force to reckon with.
Tasmanians are getting steamed up about plans to exclude their island state from an Australia-wide tour featuring cricket's famous Ashes urn.
Will Hodgman, who leads the opposition party in state parliament, said he had written to the MCC -- custodians of the tiny trophy -- demanding the urn be displayed publicly in the state capital, Hobart.
Tasmania is the only one of Australia's six states not included on the tour, which starts on Oct. 21 in Sydney.
Tasmania will not be hosting any of the five test matches between England and Australia -- which are spread across Australia's five mainland state capitals.
Hodgman said Tasmanians deserved to get a rare glimpse at the Ashes, which symbolize the intense sporting rivalry between England and Australia.
Australian captain Ricky Ponting was born in Tasmania and plays his domestic cricket for the state.
And even the recently appointed chief executive of London's history-steeped MCC, Keith Bradshaw, grew up and studied in Tasmania, playing first-class cricket for the state in the 1980s.
"It is bad enough that the English refuse to hand over the original urn every time that they lose the Ashes, which is often and will no doubt occur again over the summer, but for them to ignore one of Australia's state capitals in its urn tour is appalling," Hodgman said in a statement cited by Australian Associated Press.
Hodgman said he had requested the urn be displayed at the Tasmanian Cricket Museum at Bellerive Oval either before or during the 2006-07 Ashes series, which starts on Nov. 23 in Brisbane.
``Many Tasmanians are mad keen cricket supporters and competitors, and we have produced some of Australia's best cricketers,'' he said.
``I can see no good reason that the MCC would refuse my request, on behalf of all Tasmanians, to see the Ashes urn visit Tasmania,'' Hodgman said.
Tasmaninan Premier Paul Lennon said that state and national cricket administrators had been working for a number of months to include Tasmania in the urn's itinerary.
``I am confident that the MCC will agree that it is only right for Tasmania to be included on the urn's Australian itinerary,'' he said.
The Ashes refers to a mock obituary placed in the Sporting Times newspaper in 1882 after England lost to Australia on home soil for the first time: ``In Affectionate Remembrance of English Cricket, which died at The Oval, deeply lamented by a large circle of sorrowing friends and acquaintances. R.I.P. The body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia.''
Later that year, England left for Australia, and after it won a three-test series, some Melbourne women allegedly burned one of the bails from the third test, put the ashes in the urn, and presented it to England captain Ivo Bligh.
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