India go into their World Cup opener against minnows Netherlands on Wednesday confident that Sachin Tendulkar and psychologist Sandy Gordon have helped them get over pre-tournament jitters.
The Indians begin their campaign against the backdrop of an embarrassing tour of New Zealand where the famed batting line-up could not pass 122 in four of the seven one-day internationals.
Worse, Sourav Ganguly’s men received a jolt ahead of the World Cup when a rookie fast bowler of Indian descent, Yadeen Singh, inflicted further wounds in a warm-up match near Durban last week.
Yadeen, yet to play a first-class match, removed India’s three best batsmen, Tendulkar, Ganguly and Virender Sehwag cheaply to help provincial side KwaZulu Natal beat the tourists by 32 runs. It convinced World Cup rivals that the Indians were sitting ducks against fast bowling, forcing coach John Wright and skipper Ganguly to take immediate remedial measures.
The first was to install Tendulkar, one-day cricket’s leading batsman with more than 10 000 runs in the bank, at the pivotal number three position after shuffling his batting order over the last few years.
Second, they organised a team session with psychologist Gordon on Monday afternoon to enable them to forget the recent past and restore their confidence.
Gordon, a South Africa-based Australian, will also have one-to-one sessions with the entire 15-man squad on Tuesday, just in case anyone needed further help.
”It was decided before we came to South Africa that Gordon will help the boys,” said team official Amrit Mathur.
”Today’s session was very useful.”
Tendulkar, who has scored all but one of his record 33 one-day centuries as an opening batsman, was shunted down the order to enable strokemaker Virender Sehwag patner Ganguly at the top.
Critics, however, slammed the move, saying Tendulkar was being wasted at four since the team’s best batsman should get the maximum overs to bat.
Sehwag will continue to open with Ganguly, but Tendulkar will now bat at number three, leaving Rahul Dravid and four and young guns Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif to follow.
”We have spoken a lot about the batting order and have decided to have Sachin at three,” Ganguly said.
”We may not have played too well in the recent past, but we had a very good year otherwise and I am confident we will be back to our best in the World Cup.”
The Dutch, who qualified by winning the ICC trophy for non-Test playing nations, are unlikely to provide the Indians any serious opposition, but any victory at this point will be a welcome change. India are drawn in a group of death alongside reigning champions Australia, Pakistan, England, Zimbabwe, Namibia and the Dutch with only three due to move up to the super six round.
If England grant free points to Zimbabwe by not playing in Harare, the race for the super six will get even tougher.
But Ganguly was not unduly worried. ”We can’t be too worried of what is happening elsewhere,” he said. ”Our aim is to try and win all the games we play.” – Sapa-AFP