The Hindu : Sport : It's up to us to keep the momentum going

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Apr 05, 2005

Sport

Sport

It's up to us to keep the momentum going

By Sourav Ganguly

Our fine win at Kochi was based on a solid all-round performance. We lost two early wickets, but Virender Sehwag and Rahul Dravid, once again, bailed us out from a potentially dangerous situation with some very sensible batting.

Their 201-run partnership should have been an ideal platform to launch a late assault, but somehow we could not get after the bowling in the final stages of our innings and the last 10 overs yielded too few. That was the only flaw in an otherwise excellent show. However, given the hot and humid conditions, 281 was always going to test Pakistan. It did.

Top-class

Our bowlers did a wonderful job and the ground fielding as well as the catching was top-class. The catch Zaheer Khan took off his own bowling to dismiss Yousuf Youhana was out of this world. The ball was played to his wrong side (right). I thought he did very well to hold it comfortably in his follow-through.

It was good to see Sachin Tendulkar bowl so well. If he can land his leg-spinners as well as he did in Kochi, he will be quite a handful in this series.

The five-wicket haul should also boost his confidence, which he will be taking to the crease when he takes guard the next time.

No praise can be too high for Rahul and Viru. They were exhausted by the end, but as long as they were in the middle, they gave it everything. What more can the team ask for from two of our leading batsmen!

Hopefully, the two days rest in between would help them to recover from the cramps and they will come out fully energised when we take the field in Vizag.

I had never played before in conditions as hot and humid as it was in Kochi. In Vizag, it is a different ground and hopefully the heat will not be as much.

From India's point of view, we must build on this win. We have this bad habit of winning one and losing the next, but the boys are determined not to let history repeat itself.

After our loss in Bangalore, just about everyone expected Pakistan to call the shots in the ODIs, especially as they had won the last four against us.

I am, of course, not a great believer in history when it comes to one-day cricket. And I will be the last one to take Pakistan lightly. I am sure they will tinker with their line-up slightly and come back strongly at us. It will be left to us to keep our new-found momentum going.

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