The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Captains exude confidence

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Wednesday, Sep 01, 2004

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Captains exude confidence

By Our Special Correspondent

TRENT BRIDGE, AUG. 31. Sourav Ganguly reckons it is just a matter of time for his batsmen to strike form even as his counterpart Michael Vaughan places faith in speedster Steve Harmison. On the eve of the first match of the NatWest Challenge, the two captains exuded confidence in every department of their teams.

"We didn't play well in two games in the recent past. Either you look at it or you look at how the team has performed in the last two years," remarked Ganguly.

World-class performer

Vaughan, who observed that Harmison had the strength to knock the opposition flat with pace and bounce, said: "for a year he has turned out to be a world-class performer.

He showed in the summer that he is going to be a big threat with the white ball. If he gets it right, I am pretty positive he could keep the Indian batsmen under pressure.''

But the England skipper paid tributes to the Indian batting when he said, "their record speaks for themselves. The Indians have a huge amount of experience and we find they are very exciting to play against — we need to make early inroads to find any weakness in their batting.''

Ganguly did not feel there was need for flexibility in the batting order, as is being done by Pakistan. "I feel the instance of Shoaib Malik coming in at number three is not the right comparison. Malik is a proper batsman, better than most of their batsmen.''

As in the past, Ganguly pointed out the absence of a good all-rounder in the team.

"We have all-rounders like Sehwag and Tendulkar (who is out of this tournament) who can bowl spin but we don't have all-rounders who can bowl medium-pace in domestic cricket. Till they come along, we would have to go with depth in batting order."

New faces

On the opposition, Ganguly said: "there are some new faces in the England team but we have played against most of them.

They have done well in Test matches. Any team that wins 10 out of 11 Test matches is an outstanding achievement."

About the pitch, the India captain said: "it's always been a good batting wicket. I hope there are enough runs in it. We have to raise our game in the next seven games to get our confidence back."

Vaughan noted, "we are trying to take our Test confidence into the one-dayers. It's a huge challenge for us as India is a great one-day team, one of the best in the world. It's going to be a good contest."

On Tendulkar's absence, Vaughan observed: "Tendulkar is a world-class performer and he is someone you want to play against."

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