|
 Haunted by injuries and bruised by hostile pitches, the struggling Indians are hoping that the McLean Park here would finally mark the turnaround in their fortunes when they take on New Zealand in the second one-day international here tomorrow. There has been partial good news on both the injuries and the pitch front for the Indians who are desperately seeking their first win on this tour.
Two of the three injured players - off-spinner Harbhajan Singh and all-rounder Sanjay Bangar - are fit and available for the match while the pitch here is reputed to be one of the better ones for the batsmen in New Zealand. However, with indications that Sachin Tendulkar once again would be missing out due to his ankle injury, the problems of the Indians are far from over. Tendulkar arrived with the team at the practice session this morning with a crepe bandage on his troublesome right ankle and limited his participation to offering advice to the younger players.
 Skipper Sourav Ganguly hoped his team’s nightmarish run on this tour would finally end tomorrow. "It’s a matter of just one innings. It’s a matter of spending time in the middle," he said in his pre-match comments as the Indians put in extra hours at the net session. To the obvious question about the condition of the pitch, Ganguly said he had yet to examine it but had heard that it was good for the batsmen. "I have not seen the pitch though I saw a photo of it in a local newspaper yesterday. I realised wickets are making more news than the cricketers," said the captain who had severely criticised the pitches for the two Test matches and the first one-dayer in Auckland, describing them as substandard for international matches.
New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming, who too had expressed his displeasure with the pitch in Auckland, felt that McLean Park was probably the best wicket in this series so far. "It would be the best wicket we have seen on this tour so far. As you go down the country, the wickets are pretty good. They will all improve with the sunlight and weather conditions improving," he said. India are not likely to make more than one change in their squad, bringing in Bangar in place of Shiv Sundar Das who has already taken a flight home after playing the first game due to unavailability of three players due to injuries.
 Ganguly said the Indians sorely missed the services of a fourth seamer in Auckland where the match slipped away from them after having tied down the New Zealanders at 52 for six. Apart from being used as the fourth seamer, Bangar is also likely to partner Virender Sehwag at the top of the order with Ganguly once again demoting himself.
Despite Sehwag's woeful run in this country, Ganguly today gave him a big vote of confidence saying there was no need to change the batting slot of the dashing opener.
"He has been successful in that position and everyone is struggling, so why change the order. After all, he is the one who is going to open (in the World Cup) for us in South Africa," Ganguly said. The skipper said every batsman was working very hard in the nets and having good hits but admitted that it was the performance in the match which counted. "A few balls hitting in the middle will give you more confidence than probably a week of nets. There would be coaches to tell you, ex-cricketers to guide you, but you have to go out there and do it in the centre," he said.
Tendulkar’s absence will provide V V S Laxman with another opportunity to prove himself ahead of the selection of the World Cup squad on Monday. An integral part of the Test team, Laxman is a fringe player in the one-dayers and has not been doing well at all in this series. India are likely to go in with all the three seamers - Zaheer Khan, Javagal Srinath and Ashish Nehra - who played in the first match, making it a four-pronged pace attack in combination with Bangar, almost a necessity in these conditions. Veteran leg-spinner Anil Kumble is also all set to retain his place which means Harbhajan Singh would have to wait for his turn.
 Fleming was concerned about the form of his batsmen which he said was vital for continuing the team's winning sequence. "You got to keep the momentum going. Of course, there would be days when you would cock it up," Fleming said. "It’s too early to panic because we have not got runs. There is a lot more cricket to be played in this series, especially for the batsmen and hopefully for us it starts tomorrow," Fleming said. "The bottomline is that we are crying out for some quality playing surfaces." It has been a bowlers' game throughout this tour and New Zealand have been well-served by their battery of pacemen. But with the December 31 deadline for the announcement of World Cup squad drawing near, they are likely to rest their express bowler Shane Bond for tomorrow's game in a bid to give someone else a chance to prove his worth.
|
