Sourav Ganguly admits that cricket has changed and teams racking up mammoth totals in Tests consistently is part of history now but for India to ace the format, they will have to score heavily in the first innings.
Ganguly’s advise has come after India suffered a thrashing in the final of the ICC World Test Championship against Australia.
After Australia were bowled out for 469 in their first dig, India responded with 296. Then, in chase of 444, Rohit Sharma’s men folded for 234.
“Aggression is fine but you also need performance with that,” Ganguly said on Star Sports. “If you see the five-six years between 2001 and 2006, India’s batters scored 500-600 runs in big venues, whether it was Sydney, Brisbane, Headingley, Nottingham, Oval, Peshawar, Islamabad or Lahore, due to which they put the opposition team under pressure.”
“So I feel the Indian team will have to do that somewhere or the other. I understand cricket has changed slightly between what it was 10 years ago and now, the situations and wickets have changed, but India will have to see that they score 350-400 runs in the first innings in Test cricket,” he added.
With India losing back-to-back WTC finals, questions are being asked about whether the players lack in confidence when it comes to knockouts or title clashes.
Ganguly says the current team doesn’t lack belief and hinted that the heavy workload could be taking its toll.
“I don’t agree that this team does not have the belief. We played well in England in 2021 and before that, we played good cricket in Australia in 2020-21, where Rishabh Pant won us the series on the last day, I feel that happens with belief only. They play so much cricket and travel a lot, so it probably goes slightly back for a short time, so they need to recoup that and bring it back, which I feel is absolutely possible,” he said.
Comments
0 comment