NEWS
Follow UsAfter decimating Bangladesh 2-0 in a Test series which was dominated by the hosts from Day 1, the senior Indian men’s Test side is ready for their next Test assignment at home, which is against New Zealand, starting October 16 at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.
In the Bangladesh series, if one thing stood out from the Indian team, it was their desperation to win the Test regardless of the situations they found themselves in. That required great adaptation, which India did spectacularly well in the Kanpur Test, where they won the Test within six sessions after almost two and a half day of play couldn’t happen on the first three days of the Test.
Gautam Gambhir, India’s head coach, wishes to see the same kind of adaptability when India are against the wall in a completely different scenario.
“We want to be that team which can score 400 in a day and bat for two days to salvage a draw,” Gambhir said. “And you call that growth, you call that adaptability, you call that Test cricket. If you play only one way, then there is no growth.”
Not just that, he also backed the players in the current Indian Test side to be able to showcase both abilities — bat fast, and bat long.
“I can't talk about world cricket. Every team has their ideologies, their methods to play Test cricket. I can only talk about my team. If we are ever in such a situation where we have to bat for two days to draw a Test, we have players in the dressing room who can bat for two days,” the former India opener said, who once did something similar in a Test in New Zealand.
“Ultimately, our first motive is to win a match and then if there is a situation where the team has to play for a draw, we have to keep those options open as well. That is the kind of Test cricket that we want to play.
“We want people to be aggressive, we want people to go out there and play their natural game. If they can play the natural game, if they can get 400-500 runs in a day, why not? We will play it that way - high-risk, high-reward; high-risk, high-failure.
“There will be days when we'll get bundled up for 100 but we'll continue to back our players. That's how we want to play and that's how we want to entertain the people of this country and, even in Test cricket, we want to keep the game going forward and get the results in whatever situation we are in.”
If India manage to win the upcoming three Tests against New Zealand, they’ll be well placed to make the final of the World Test Championship (WTC). They are currently on top of the table after winning 74.24% of the points available to them.
A clean sweep victory here would ensure that India are under less pressure when they travel to Australia for the five Border Gavaskar Trophy Test matches.
However, Gambhir wants to take it one challenge at a time and just think about the game against the Kiwis on October 16.
“See, the first thing is that the World Test Championship is in June [2025]. And the second thing is that the Test match in Australia is on November 22. But right now, only New Zealand is on our mind and nothing else," Gambhir remarked.
"When you play international cricket, you don't think about how to prepare for the five Test matches in the Australia series or how to prepare for the World Test Championship final. Right now, the most important thing is how to be ready on November 16 at 9.30am. That is more important because you don't see ahead that far.”
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