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 Admitting that he was probably going through the toughest time of his career, a struggling Indian captain, Sourav Ganguly, today stressed that his batsmen were not afraid of pace or bounce but claimed the nature of wickets in New Zealand was preventing them from scoring runs. “We don’t mind bounce, pace or movement. But if you can also play your shots, there is a fair chance to score runs as well,” said Ganguly whose team has been repeatedly bundled out for low scores to be whitewashed 2-0 in the Tests and lost all the three one-day internationals played so far. “Here the ball is not coming on to the bat. Thus, making shots is difficult. It’s more of a spongy type where the ball doesn’t come on to the bat and executing shots is not easy.
“Instead of hitting shots here, we are hitting it back to the fielders. We have not been able to time it. I can’t remember a good cover drive or a cut in this whole series,” Ganguly said. “This is the most testing moment of my career, no doubt about that,” he said ahead of the fourth one-day international here tomorrow which India must win to prevent New Zealand from taking an invincible 4-0 lead in the seven-match series. However, Ganguly emphasised that the performance of his team on this tour should not be taken as an indication of what was to come in the World Cup.
“We have not played well in this series but it does not guarantee we will play poorly in the World Cup. I draw a lot of strength from our past performances and if we have done it in the past, we can do it again,” he said. “At present, we are just hoping to change things around tomorrow and in the next game. I hope it works out at some stage,” said Ganguly. “It’s four straight games now and obviously there is pressure on the team to do well. It’s a big day tomorrow. “We have to win four straight games in a row and that’s happened to this team over the last one year. I hope we do it this time but it’s going to be hard,” he said.
Citing the example of Nathan Astle to drive home his point that the pitches did not allow batsmen to play shots, Ganguly said the New Zealander had to resort to slogging to hit boundaries. “In the last game, whatever boundaries came were through slogs. Astle took Srinath for 22 runs in an over but they were not proper hits from the crease. He made his adjustments to have pace on the ball. “The grounds are not very big in New Zealand compared to other parts of the world. But you still got to hit them - presently, we are only nicking them,” he said. Ganguly and coach John Wright defended the team for taking a day off yesterday for sightseeing in this picturesque city.
Ganguly and his deputy Rahul Dravid went for a jet boat ride while the others took a helicopter to fly to the mountains and enjoyed playing with snow.
“For a lot of them who have not been here before, it was a chance to get out and relax,” Wright said. “There is no harm in it because they play under a lot of pressure and obviously it’s been a tough tour. Sometimes you do have to get away from it.”
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