|
Nottingham, Aug 1: The Indian team celebrated
its remarkable victory over England in the second cricket Test
with a quiet dinner at a restaurant close to the team hotel.
While the celebrations were in order, the Indians avoided going
overboard. Interestingly, there's a jinx haunting India in an
away-series that they are all well aware of and are keen to set
the record straight this time. In the 2003-04 series in
Australia, India upset the hosts in Adelaide only to lose the
next Test in Melbourne. Later, in 2004, India won its first Test
ever in Pakistan only to lose the next game in Lahore. And, more
recently, having won its first ever Test in South Africa in
Johannesburg early this year, India duly succumbed in the next
Test at Durban before losing the series in Cape Town. "Thanks
for reminding me," joked captain Rahul Dravid, to a query on
this Indian jinx.
"We have to be consistent. We have to back
our good performances by some more good performances. We will
celebrate this win, but at the same time, we will keep our mind
focused on the final Test at the Oval and on what we need to do
there. "We will be taking a lot of confidence from this game and
we will try our best to win the series. We know England will
come back hard at us and we expect a tough game." Echoing
similar views was Sachin Tendulkar who said, "This win was
special because it was a total team effort. But now the final
Test becomes extremely important. We need to keep the momentum
going and believe in ourselves."
India's stunning win puts England in a grave
danger of losing their first home series since 2001. At the
moment, the hosts are sitting proudly on an unbeaten home Test
series record stretching back six years to their 2001 defeat by
Australia, a sequence that includes 11 successive series. It has
put the pressure firmly on England to deliver at the Oval, scene
of their Ashes triumph just two years ago, if they are not to
surrender that unbeaten home record but captain Michael Vaughan
is confident his side can deliver. "I have confidence because I
feel we've got 20 wickets in our attack to put them under
pressure and that's what you need to win a Test match," he said.
"The Oval has been a pretty good hunting
ground for us, it's usually a good wicket and if you bowl well
you get wickets and if you bat well you get runs. "The key is to
put enough runs on the board to give our bowlers a chance to
bowl them out and that's what we've got to try and work on over
the next week to give ourselves the best chance, but I'm pretty
confident we can go there and put on a good performance,"
Vaughan said. On their part, the Indians will be looking to stay
focused and maintain their fine all-round performance to go back
on a high.
A look at the stats since the new millennium
suggests that India has won 16 Test matches away and 14 at home.
Except for New Zealand, they have won matches in every
Test-playing country.
And their tally of 16 wins abroad is better
than England (14), South Africa (13), Pakistan (13) and Sri
Lanka (10) in the new millennium. It is next only to world
champions Australia (26). (Agencies)
|
