India can recover in time for World Cup - Ganguly

Lynn McConnell

January 14, 2003

India have enough time before the World Cup to recoup their forces and become a competitive unit in South Africa, according to skipper Sourav Ganguly.

Asked if there was time to prepare for the World Cup after the disappointments of this tour in which the Test series had been lost 2-0 and the one-day series 5-2, he said: "We had better. Instead of hoping that it would recover, we have to [recover]."

The side would go home for 10-11 days and have a break and then be refreshed to get their form going which would be the key to success at the World Cup.

"We have been to South Africa before where there have been runs scored, so it's not that it hasn't happened, but it has to happen again. The past has no meaning, it has to happen in the World Cup."

The players needed to be professional about their preparation and forget about the bad times they have had in this series and to look ahead because there were always good times and bad times in the game.

"We lost too many wickets with the new ball and did not put enough runs on the board to defend," he said of today's six-wicket loss in Hamilton.

While his bowlers had a bad today, Ganguly was loath to criticise them because they had a lot of work during the tour and they had bowled well.

He said there were some positives to come out of the tour because in the conditions it had been a learning process for all the batsmen.

"In tough conditions you have got to put your head together, the wickets were hard but that's no excuse.

"The techniques probably have to be a bit more tighter for all of us, we do play a lot of one-day cricket which makes the techniques fragile and we do play a lot of cricket so the mind factor is equally important," he said.

"These are wickets where you have to really concentrate hard, fight hard and show a lot of determination. They are not wickets where even if you make a minor mistake you will get away with it.

There was enough for the bowlers and every ball did enough to keep batsmen awake. But it hadn't happened as batsmen had got in but had just not carried on, throughout the tour.

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