The early build-up for Chappell is filled with touring concerns

The players are scheduled to tour Sri Lanka in late July for a one-day series also featuring the West Indies.

They are then due to join New Zealand and hosts Zimbabwe for another limited-overs showdown in August.

But a contracts dispute clouds the West Indies trip to Sri Lanka, while New Zealand may refuse to tour Zimbabwe.

On Monday, the players began training under new coach Greg Chappell, the highly prized Australian signing, in Bangalore.

But the Board of Control for Cricket in India is also keeping tabs on machinations in Antigua, the administrative centre of West Indies cricket, and Wellington, the seat of the New Zealand government.

The West Indies are struggling to pick a squad to tour Sri Lanka, with their first Test there scheduled for 13 July.

Only three of the 13 selected players - Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Darren Powell and rookie wicket-keeper Dinesh Ramdin - have signed tour contracts with the West Indies Cricket Board.

NZ keen on boycott

The increasingly powerful West Indies Players' Association is backing the other players as they wait for improved terms.

Meanwhile, the New Zealand government would prefer its team to boycott Zimbabwe in protest against the increasingly brutal Robert Mugabe regime.

Unless both issues are settled amicably, the Indians may have no-one to play against.

All eyes are focused on London where the sport's administrators have gathered for the annual meetings of the International Cricket Council (ICC) which end on Tuesday.

New Zealand's foreign affairs minister Phil Goff is pushing the ICC to waive the fine for forfeiting tours in situations where there are extreme human rights abuses.

India, whose government is routinely silent on the Zimbabwe atrocities, have never threatened to pull out of cricket matches in Harare and Bulawayo.