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Ganguly dropped from Indian side

Under-fire Indian captain Sourav Ganguly will not play in the crucial fifth one-day international against Pakistan in Kanpur on Friday.

Ganguly was allowed to play pending an appeal against a six-match ban for time-wasting but the Indian board has asked him not to.

Rahul Dravid will captain India instead, with Dinesh Mongia likely to take the spare batting spot on offer.

"The position was explained to Ganguly," said an Indian board member.

Ganguly is still expected to travel from his hometown Calcutta to the northern city where the match is being staged.

Board secretary Karunakaran Nair added: "Since less than 24 hours remain for the start of the Kanpur match, the board felt it was extremely important for the players to concentrate and focus on the match.

"That way they can bring out their best performance."

Friday's meeting is the 100th one-day contest between the two sides but as far as this series is concerned the momentum is with the visitors.

Dravid has called for discipline from his bowlers.

He said: "The slow over rate is something we need to fix. We have to get our act together.

"The bowlers must hurry up and the fielders need to back them up in doing so.

"It's the responsibility of the whole side, we're better prepared this time.

"The series is nicely set up, it's a good challenge and a lot to play for both sides.

"This is a very important match, we've not won a big one-day series at home in the past five years."

Pakistan's vice-captain Younis Khan said: "There's no such thing as momentum in one-dayers.

"The team that does well on the day wins the match.

"We're peaking at the right time, we've played well in past two games and need to do it again."

Source: bbc.com