The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : No living in the past: Dravid

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 03, 2006

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Sport - Cricket

No living in the past: Dravid

Principal Correspondent

Bangalore : Rahul Dravid reiterated that the past would not matter when India and Pakistan face-off in the coming weeks.

India is scheduled to play three Tests and five one-dayers in the tour that will commence with a three-day practise game at Lahore on January 7. Recently Both India and Pakistan have notched facile 2-0 Test series victories over Sri Lanka and England respectively, besides triumphs in the one-day series, however the Indian skipper emphasised that tomorrow is another day.

"It doesn't really matter what you did in the past or in the last one month. When you begin a match, it all depends on how you play on that day and what you did in the past becomes irrelevant. Yes Pakistan had a good run against England and we have had a good run against Sri Lanka but when the series against Pakistan starts, both teams will start at 0-0. Yes, maybe from our earlier performances we can get confidence, may be psychologically it helps but really it all boils down to how you play on that particular day," Dravid told the media after spending some time with his Statemates while Karnataka geared up for its Ranji Trophy clash against Delhi at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.

After terming the forthcoming series as a `tough one', Dravid downplayed the excessive attention being given to Shoaib Akhtar as a `key factor.' "The whole team is a factor. It will be a mistake if we just focus on one or two individual players.

They have a good team with some fine players and similarly we have a good team with some good all-round players. It will be a mistake if both teams focus on individuals," Dravid said.

On the lessons learnt from the last tour, Dravid said, "we enjoyed our last tour there and it was a tremendous series. What we learnt was that it is important to play some good tough cricket to win there. Most of us, who have been there and the others, who are new to the team, are looking forward to being there and doing well. We want to play some good hard cricket and at the same time, enjoy our game."

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