Indian captain Sourav Ganguly is concerned about his pace bowlers' heavy workload, but realizes there is no easy solution.
"Our pace bowlers are under pressure . . being asked to bowl day in and day out," Ganguly said on Monday. "But I don't have the choice of resting them.
"We don't have an adequate bench strength to rotate our top bowlers. If I rest them, then who bowls in their place?" India has been on a hot streak, winning the one-day series against the West Indies and the triangular series in England that also featured Sri Lanka.
Beating England by eight wickets on Sunday, India now takes on South Africa in the Champions Trophy semifinals on Wednesday.
Ganguly said the lack of top-class bench strength was a worrying factor as India has a crowded schedule up to next year's World Cup. The Indian team has been on the road since March with drawn-out tours to the West Indies and England, before coming to Colombo for the Champions Trophy.
Indian police have arrested 13 bookmakers for betting on Sunday's Champions Trophy match in Colombo where India crushed England to storm into the semi-finals.
Public betting is banned in India and, since a match-fixing scandal rocked national cricket in 2000, authorities have taken sweeping precautions against clandestine betting on international cricket matches.
Police here said the bookies were arrested while they were raking in bets worth millions of dollars on thes game in which Virender Sehwag and Sourav Ganguly smashed centuries to rout England.
Police stormed the bookies' office in the northern city of Jodhpur on Sunday night and siezed computers, mobile telephones, cameras and other gadgets used to monitor and record the match in Colombo, the officials said.
India, who won the day-night match in style with 10.3 overs to spare, will now meet South Africa in the first semi-final tomorrow.
Zimbabwe captain Heath Streak has been hurt in a road accident in Sri Lanka.
Fast bowler Streak has been taken to hospital in Colombo with a suspected dislocated collar bone.
It is thought that he was travelling as a passenger in a three-wheeler taxi when it collided with a van in the city's Cinnamon Gardens area and overturned.
"We provide security for the entire team, but in this case he had left the hotel without informing our people," the Agence France Presse quoted a police spokesman as saying.
The England and Wales Cricket Board is likely to press for improvements in the scheduling before they stage the ICC Champions Trophy in 2004.
This year's event in Sri Lanka guaranteed that all sides would play at least two matches, after some teams travelled to Kenya for the ICC Knockout in 2000 and were eliminated after one game.
But with the 12 teams divided into four pools of three, it still meant that two of the qualifiers for the semi-finals were effectively decided by the result of a single match.
The opening game, for example, featured Sri Lanka and Pakistan was decisive in Pool Four with Holland unable to mount a challenge against either.
West Indies manager Rickey Skerritt has accused Sri Lankan police bodyguards of "high-handed and authoritative" behaviour after a move to crack down on women entering hotel rooms of players.
Skerritt's lawyers, in a letter to a local newspaper which published a report of a police complaint, said that "interested parties" were trying to "sully the good name of our client".
Police had said in a letter to the International Cricket Council that three women were found in the rooms of Skerritt and his computer operator, Garfield Smith, in violation of the strict ICC access control rules.
The ICC sought police protection for the Champions Trophy tournament, not so much to protect players, but to make sure they don't get up to dirty tricks.
The tight regulations were aimed at preventing bookmakers or their agents coming into contact with the players taking part in the mini-world cup tournament.
New Zealand 244-9 (50 overs) beat Bangladesh 77 (19.2 overs) by 167 runs
A destructive new ball spell by New Zealand paceman Shane Bond wrecked Bangladesh's hopes of an upset victory at the Sinhalese Sports Club.
Bond had Al Sahariar lbw in his oepning over and took four for 15 in his initial spell before skipper Stephen Fleming withdrew him from the attack.
He returned for one more over before the close, but could not manage a fifth wicket and it was spinner Daniel Vettori who ended the contest by bowling Manjurul Islam for 10.
At 19 for five, Bangladesh looked in danger of their lowest one-day score in 55 matches, but just managed to overhaul their 76 all out against Sri Lanka at the same ground last month.
They did well to restrict New Zealand to under 250 after Khaled Mashud won the toss, with leg-spinner Mohammed Ashraful taking three for 26.
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Graham Thorpe has completed a u-turn by telling the England management he will be unavailable for this winter's Ashes series.