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Ganguly laments on the Lord's let-down

By G. Viswanath

Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly obliging autograph hunters at the Worcester cricket ground where bad weather continued to hamper play on Thursday. But he will have a more serious job on hand of getting his act together for the second Test against England. — Photo: N. Sridharan

New Road (Worcester) Aug. 1. During winter, for about four months, the New Road venue is waterlogged. It is said water from the Severn River overflows into the ground and rises up to five feet or thereabout. Even the press box is flooded. So it has not come as a surprise to many that a large area of the ground had to be covered for play to start at anytime on Thursday, Friday or even Saturday.

It was dull and dismal for the second day running and the Indians and Worcestershire players were confined to the dressing room. India's captain Sourav Ganguly had to stroll out at 11 a.m. because the umpires were in the middle for a first inspection.

Ganguly, returned in a gingerly manner and certainly not with happy news. It was, indeed, not a happy Test match for him at Lord's, making 5 and 0 and losing the first Test by 170 runs. But he managed to pick out some good things out of that Test match. He also defended the decision to rest left-arm seamers, Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra in the warm-up matches before the first Test.

All support to Sehwag

He was emphatic about giving a long rope to Virender Sehwag as an opener. "Why only eight innings. If he does well, he will be there for long. I think he will do well because he plays his shots. I think we give enough time for a pair to settle down.

We gave five Tests (to Shiv Sundar Das) in the West Indies. Five Tests is a lot to a pair (Das opened with Deep Dasgupta and Sanjay Bangar in one Test match each and with Wasim Jaffer in the last three Tests). Its difficult to leave out some one like Sehwag. He hit it pretty well at Lord's. With Sehwag you might have lost a wicket, but you have runs on the board. See what Michael Slater does. Sanath Jayasuriya plays his shots.

``I don't think they are technically better than Sehwag. People have different ideas, like you have got to leave the ball, but with him (Sehwag) we were 61 for one in not many overs in the second innings at Lord's. Runs are also important. You don't have a Sunil Gavaskar. Period. You have not had an opener who has batted consistently well like Gavaskar. We have never had a technician. Sehwag is doing a great job and we will continue with him.

While Ganguly made his position clear about Sehwag's status, he said he will face problems selecting the team for the second Test. "I am in a difficult situation at present to pick the eleven for the second Test at Trent Bridge.

Obviously Harbhajan Singh is in contention, whether the game is played here or not. At the same time you have to find solutions for other problems because Ajit has scored a Test hundred. He did not bowl well at Lord's. But I think his hundred is going to help his confidence overall as a cricketer. Anil Kumble bowled reasonably well, but not up to the standards he has bowled in the past. Ashish Nehra has not bowled well. We will have a problem selecting the team.

Philosophical about the weather

Talking about the preparation for the second Test and how a poor pitch and rain as interfered with his teams training he said: "It looks difficult here. The weather forecast is worse for tomorrow. If it doesn't rain, we will push for a start. This is bound to happen in England for all the visiting teams. They have to face this problem of rain. That's what England is all about. Every visiting team is going to have a few games affected by rain. It hampers your preparations. But at this level you have to get along wit it. Looking from this aspect I wont say our preparations were hampered.

``We got a pretty poor pitch in Hampshire. It's not an excuse, because we had a long one-day series before the Lord's Test. It's good to have such long gaps between Test matches, because we play a lot of cricket. It's good for the mind, you get time to rest and prepare for the next game. I think we just did not play the Test match well enough. We would have liked a good practice in the centre. We (Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar) did not get runs in the last Test match.

Going back to the Lord's Test he said: "Like, while batting you need some one to score a century, if the team has to get a big score, it is same in bowling. You need someone to take five wickets. None of their bowlers took five wickets, it was all twos and threes.

``I thought Zaheer bowled well at Lord's. Zaheer and Ashish played five and four Tests in the West Indies. And within a short while they came to England and played almost all the games. And also almost all the matches of the tri-series. It took a heavy toll of them. Ashish wanted rest. I think we have to look up to their well-being. They asked for rest and we thought it was fair enough too. It's not easy running, day in and day out. We knew they had to play four Tests and we have to rest them.

``Lord's was a good wicket to bat. It was one of the flattest. The weather was good. It's the best we have got since I started playing here. We might have probably made a mistake in not picking the right team. I never thought that the pitch would help the spinners in England. But at the same time Ajit (Agarkar) turned up and scored a Test hundred. Any Test hundred has to be good.

About Nasser Hussain's captaincy he said: "He was defensive. His team made close to 500 runs in India, but he was not there to give runs easily. I think his tactics were pretty good. At the same time you need to have your bowlers bowling well and bowl to that consistent line. The captain is good only if his bowlers stick to their job. At one stage Nasser had set a 7-2 field, hence one must give credit to Hoggard, White and Flintoff and Jones. They bowled on one side of the wicket.

Ganguly also had something to say about the Trent Bridge Test. "They say Nottingham has the best wicket in England. All the pitches in England are going to assist seam bowling. You won't get flat decks here. Even at Lord's the pitch did help the seam bowlers. It's difficult for me to say. You cannot go with two and two on a green-topped pitch. Can you? They won't make it bare. They will leave some grass on it.

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