India look to foreign legion to inspire their first victory

India will pin their hopes on a pack of overseas-based players to break their duck on the international scene at their third appearance at the Asian Championship, which kicks off today with two Pool C games at King's Park.

'We have two targets to achieve, one is to win our first international match and the other is to make people aware that apart from cricket, rugby is also played in India,' said Pramod Khanna, president of the Indian Rugby Football Union, yesterday.

Khanna is hoping that the seven players in the squad of 25 who are based in England and Ireland, where they play club rugby, will provide the spark to fire India to a historic win, either over China today, or against either Sri Lanka or debutants Pakistan on Saturday.

Among the seven are two players who currently turn out for England captain Jonny Wilkinson's club, the Newcastle Falcons, in the Premiership. The two are speedy winger Amarveer Ladhar and prop Simon Patel.

The rest of the foreign-based players are brothers Alexander and Christopher Walker, both lock forwards who turn out for Jersey, fullback Francis Brown (Harlow), prop Manminder Singh (Mosley) and Ajay Sabherwal, who plays in Ireland. They all either have Indian parentage or were born in the country. 'This is the first time that we have gone overseas and picked players of Indian origin. They will bring a lot of experience to the rest of the squad and it is a great mix and match,' said Khanna.

India are captained by back-rower Nasser Hussain - 'No, he is not the former England cricket captain,' laughed Khanna - and coached by Willie Hetaraka, a former New Zealand Maori Colts coach. Hetaraka was originally brought in to coach a fledgling Indian army side but has now been co-opted into the national set-up.

Rugby is now a compulsory discipline in the army, but at this tournament there are no representatives from the force. Three were selected to the national pool but had to pull out through injury.