The CFX Academy this week intensified their preparations for the three-day warm-up match against India starting on Saturday at the Academy by training with the senior national team on Tuesday and Wednesday at the match venue.

The Academy coach Dave Houghton was pleased with the way preparations had gone. "Preparations have been very good. We have been practising every day, which is part of our normal proceedings, and on Tuesday and Wednesday we trained with the Zimbabwe squad to give them a bit of practise as well as ourselves," he said. "On Friday we'll just have the morning session. We normally practise all day, as the India squad will be here in the afternoon for their practice."

The former national team coach said that he did not expect much from the tour match, the Academy's first international match of more than one day. "I don't expect a great deal from the Academy. They are only youngsters and for them to take on India is tough work. But it is a learning process first and it's great experience."

"I will expect the lads to go out there and give it 100 percent and get as much match experience as they can. This is how they learn what it is going to be like when they play international cricket."

"I will be fielding three non Academy players. Mluleki Nkala is going to come in and captain the side. He is from last year's Academy. Gary Brent from the first year's Academy player is going to play and also Dion Ebrahim. Just to give us a little bit more strength because, otherwise, I don't think we have enough strength to take on an international side. So we are only going to play eight of our squad of 15 here."

Houghton believes that the Academy is now much better than they were a couple of months ago when they participated in the expanded three-day inter-provincial first-class tournament, the Logan Cup. The Academy lost all its five matches against champions Mashonaland, Mashonaland A, Midlands, Manicaland and Matabeleland. They also played Bangladesh in a one-day tour match at Alexandra Sports Club on April 7 and lost by seven wickets.

"We didn't do well in the Logan Cup and we lost the game to Bangladesh. This was not unexpected. It's very much a learning curve. We take guys from school and we try and grow them up, teach them about cricket. So the Logan Cup, in particular, came before we even had time to practise because of a lot of rain around. But we are a better unit now than we were a few months ago. So results are not what counts here because it's about experience and they are getting good experience."

On who had impressed him so far this season, Houghton had four players for special mention.

"We have the most up and coming players like Campbell MacMillan, our opening bowler. Sean Ervine is a great all-rounder who I think will soon be making his way to the ODI side. Barney Rogers is probably our best batsman. Blessing Mahwire I am hoping will be fit for the weekend match as he is suffering from a knee problem. He is one of our best all-rounders.

"The rest of them are good players who are likely to be playing first-class cricket soon. I hope they will get a lot experience from the game against India. They are very excited about the game," Houghton said.

The Academy team is as follows, in probable batting order: Terry Duffin, Wisdom Siziba, Dion Ebrahim, Barney Rogers, Sean Ervine, Guy Croxford, Mluleki Nkala (capt), Gary Brent, Campbell McMillan, Leon Soma, Ian Coulson.

Indian team (from): Sourav Ganguly (captain), SS Das, SR Tendulkar, RS Dravid, J Srinath, A Nehra, DS Mohanty, S Ramesh, SS Dighe, Harbhajan Singh, AB Agarkar, Zaheer Khan, VVS Laxman and HK Badani.

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