Port-Of-Spain: Two days before the numbers start ticking ominously on the giant electronic scoreboard at the Queen’s Park Oval, you can be sure that Rahul Dravid wouldn’t be spending sleepless nights on the calculator, working out the net run rates.

Not really. To start with, the Indian skipper knows the decimals won’t matter, for now, his team has to win. Then, there’s a final XI to be fixed, a lot of loose ends in the field, especially the fielding, to be tied up. And, most importantly, there’s a whole bunch of frayed nerves to be calmed.

Will India win on Friday? More than the team combination, the key to that answer will probably emerge from how much Dravid and coach Greg Chappell are able to pump up a rattled group of players, worried by the extreme reaction back home to the Bangladesh bungle, taken aback by the backlash in Pakistan, struggling to convince themselves that the record win against rookie Bermuda was actually a turning point.

It’s not a gloom-and-doom story. Not yet. There was Dravid smiling his way through a crowd after a hard workout yesterday, there was Virender Sehwag strutting around the lobby, posing with a guitar passed on by the one-man hotel band. But then, not everybody in that 15 is as mentally tough as Dravid, or as oblivious to pressure like Sehwag, now a completely different man after that 87-ball 114.

“We would have won against Bangladesh if only we had held on to the catches. It looks really, really tough now. One mistake, and we will all be packing our bags. Tell everybody you know to pray for us now,” said a player who has figured in both the matches so far, but can’t be named for obvious reasons.

What was probably needed after that Bangladesh defeat was for the top three, Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly to join hands, dip into that huge vault of experience, and work on their mates — assure them that the World Cup is, after all, just a win away. But that has not happened, yet.

Dravid has a hundred worries of his own to grapple with — should Harbhajan Singh, who has a much better record against Lanka than Anil Kumble, come back into the 11; should Irfan Pathan take over the No 3 slot from Robin Uthappa, add that extra bowling option?

Ganguly, meanwhile, is not quite sure yet whether he is back in the team for good despite that string of 50s since the comeback, not quite sure whether the space exists for him to play the rousing motivator he once was. And Tendulkar is yet to catch the elevator down from the top floor.

Coach Chappell? For all his strategic acumen, the Aussie veteran is not really the type who can jump up on to the table, and deliver a passionate speech on guts and glory.

No wonder then, that some serious black humour is doing the rounds in the middle and lower ranks: on queuing up at Heathrow next week, on having to return home via Colombo.

But thankfully, there’s still time to plug the breach, all’s not lost. One inspirational session, a few words from the heart, and you will see the Lankans reaching for that calculator.