The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Batting not a problem with us: Ganguly

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 20, 2004

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Batting not a problem with us: Ganguly

COLOMBO, JULY 19. Positive as always, the Indian captain Sourav Ganguly said his boys displayed tremendous spirit in adversity in the 12-run defeat at the hands of Sri Lanka on Sunday.

"Even though we lost, I'm happy that we came very close to getting 283. It shows that batting second is not a problem for us," said the left-hander.

"The last 10 overs that we bowled and the first 10 overs that we batted made all the difference. We conceded too many runs then and lost quick wickets at the start of the chase," the Bengal cricketer added.

On Zaheer Khan's fitness, the skipper said that the left-arm pacer injured himself while trying to effect a sliding stop at third-man.

Sri Lankan vice-captain Mahela Jayawardene, speaking on behalf of skipper Marvan Atapattu, said "the team put in the effort in every department to achieve the thrilling victory. Everything went according to plan. While batting we had decided to keep wickets in hand, which was what we did. Our bowlers were sharp and were backed by good fielding."

Man of the Match Nuwan Zoysa said, "I stuck to the basics. The wickets of Sachin Tendulkar and Yuvraj Singh were crucial. I mixed and matched the slower ones and yorkers and it worked well for me."

The Indian and Sri Lankan teams reached Colombo on Monday evening.

The second phase of the competition begins on July 21 with India taking on Bangladesh in a day match at the Sinhalese Sports Club ground and Pakistan locking horns with Sri Lanka in a day/night clash at the R. Premadasa Stadium. — Sanjay Rajan

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