|
 A disappointed Indian captain Sourav Ganguly today said his team's 0-2 loss to New Zealand in the Test series was not "the end of the world" but he left no one in doubt about his unhappiness with the wickets in the two matches, which saw only three fifties being scored on both sides in four innings. Conceding that New Zealand had played better cricket, Ganguly said he did not want to make any excuses for his team's loss. "But the scores in the two Tests will give the answer. Just two fifties from the Indians and one from the New Zealanders in the four innings probably show it wasn't an easy time for the batsmen," he said.
His dream of winning a Test series abroad once again shattered, Ganguly promised a better performance from his team in the upcoming seven-match one-day series which, he said, would be "a different ballgame." "We now have to prepare for the one-dayers and hopefully we will come up with a much improved performance," he said. New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming complimented his bowlers for their excellent performance in the series and said they used the favourable conditions very well.
"It is one thing to have helpful conditions and quite another to be able to use it to your advantage and put the balls in the right place. Its great to captain a bowling unit as the one we have right now," he said. But Fleming admitted to being nervous throughout his team's chase today. "It was pretty intense. Half an hour of lack of concentration could have turned the game. We were pretty nervous. I thought the game was in the balance. In such kind of conditions, none was able to dominate the game," he said. "I am pleased with the way we competed in this match, particularly in the field," he said.
Ganguly felt the batsmen had fell below expectations in the second innings. "The wicket had eased a bit and I thought we could have had another 40-50 runs for the game." Wright made a pointed reference to the pitches in the two venues being watered before the game when ideally they should have been left to dry out as much as possible. "Both the wickets were watered three or four days before the Test. One in Wellington was watered as we turned up for training and the same thing happened here too. The groundsmen said it would dry up quickly. Obviously it didn't," he said.
 The quality of the pitches continued to be a topic of discussion even as the focus shifted to the one-dayers starting in Auckland on December 26. Wright hoped the tracks for the one-day matches would be more batsmen-friendly but Fleming said he didn't expect the pitches to be much different in pace and bounce from the ones used for the Test matches. "I just hope we have very good batting wickets for one- day cricket. It’s very important for both sides heading into the World Cup. We want to go in there with batsmen in form and I imagine our opposition would like to do it as well," Wright said. "From what I understand, the wickets in South Africa are going to be very flat. So for the preparation sake, it will be important if the wicket is batsman-friendly," he said.
"I want bowlers who work hard to get rewards. They love seam movement but bounce is the key thing. It doesn't matter if a team is 250 for we can set the field to come back. "It also allows the batsmen to play their shots but the key is concentration." He said even though he realised his team would not be able to perform well overseas if it continued playing in such conditions, it suited the team fine as of now. "If we are going to continue to produce wickets like these, we would not probably produce good overseas players. Certainly not going to produce overseas batsmen because these conditions did not suit the Indians. "Such was the nature of the pitch that even quality batsmen in the Indian side could not produce more than two fifties over four Test innings," he said.
Scorecard |
