Having finall chalked up one in the win column, Rahul Dravid was in a muchmore relaxed frame of mind going into Friday’s DLF Cup match againstAustralia
Dileep Premachandran at Kuala Lumpur21-Sep-2006
‘It would be nice to score some runs’ – Rahul Dravid © Getty Images
Having finally chalked up one in the win column, Rahul Dravid was in a muchmore relaxed frame of mind going into Friday’s DLF Cup match againstAustralia, a semi-final in all but name given that West Indies havealready sealed a place in Sunday’s final. And though India have been atthe receiving end of some real beating from the Australians in recentyears, most notably in the 2003 World Cup final, Dravid reckoned that hisplayers wouldn’t be intimidated going into the match.”A lot of the young guys haven’t played against Australia, so they don’thave that experience of losing to them,” he said, referring to playerslike Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Munaf Patel, Suresh Raina and Sreesanth.”Australia have done really well over the last few years. Their recordagainst any team in the world is good, not just against India. Having saidthat, it’s a great opportunity and challenge for us. I thought we did wellin the first 50 overs of the last game against them, and we do believethat if we play well, we can get the right result.”For Ricky Ponting, who comes back into the side after sitting out the lastgame, the tournament has been as much about assessing the bench strengthas it has been about preparing for the Champions Trophy. Admitting thatAustralia were expected to win every match and that there would be noexcuses if they missed out on the final, Ponting looked to return tobusiness as usual against India. “Every time you put on the green andgold, you should be able to give your best,” he said. “I wasn’t surprisedby the result yesterday, India had everything to play for and the WestIndies had nothing. Tomorrow happens to be a really big game for bothteams, and the sides should have their skills at a better level than atthe start of the tournament.”While the Australia XI had been decided much earlier, with the in-formMichael Clarke and Shane Watson sitting out, India could gamble on playingfive bowlers once again. Ajit Agarkar and Yuvraj Singh were feelingslightly unwell on Thursday, but both were expected to figure in thematch.Dravid said that his team composition would be dictated by the nature ofthe pitch. “Ideally I’d love to be able to five bowlers, but that’s whenall your batsmen have had a lot of batting and are coming into thetournament in good form. That’s where Irfan was doing a great job for uswhen he was bowling well and batting well through Sri Lanka and Englandand Pakistan. But you can’t go in with a set formula. You have to keepweighing it depending on the kind of personnel you have, the kind of formthey are in, and be flexible.”Ponting was bullish when asked about Stuart Clark, who’s being persistedwith despite going for 87 from seven overs against West Indies. “He had areally good workout yesterday and got some rhythm, that’s what he thoughtwas lacking the other night,” he said. “He knows his game very well and isexperienced. I expect him to bounce back.”The rotation policy employed by the selectors for this tournament also hadPonting’s full support. “There could be a lot of positives to come outfrom the experiments,” he said. “We’ve seen that Mitchell Johnson was afine force, and Shane Watson at the top of the order could be one morething that could happen at some stage down the track. It’s good to get alook at guys in different positions; otherwise you bring your squad of 13or 14 guys and don’t look at the younger ones. When the World Cup comesaround, if you have a few injuries, you’d be going into the tournamentwith inexperienced players.”For Dravid, most of the concerns were to do with the batting. SachinTendulkar has scores of 141 not out and 65, but there have been few othersizeable contributions. “Two matches back, we had made 309,” said Dravid.”We definitely want to do better, we know that. The top six or seven mustmake runs and bat out the full 50 overs.”His own lack of runs at the top of the order has made it hard to judge thesuitability of the decision to open with Tendulkar. “It would be nice toscore some runs,” he said. “But then, I am desperate to score every time Igo out to bat, irrespective of whether I have scored in the previous gameor not.”India’s batting frailty had certainly caught Ponting’s eye. “The Indianswill worry about their batting, but we could be worried about it as well,”he said. “We know they are all good players, a lot of them exceptionalone-day players. If we can put them under pressure for long periods oftime, then I think everything should be coming our way.”That pressure was bound to be applied from the start, with Glenn McGrathand Brett Lee slated to share the new ball. Dravid, though, refused tofocus only on those two, harking back to the debacle against West Indieson Wednesday. “I don’t think we can focus on just McGrath or Lee,” hesaid. “They have got a quality bowling attack, so we will have to playwell right through the 50 overs.”That showed yesterday with someone like Dwayne Smith bowling really well.You wouldn’t have thought of him being one of their strike bowlers whocould remove four of the top order, but he did that. It just shows that ifyou bowl in the right areas, anyone can be a threat.”Though being rolled over for 162 had dismayed him, Dravid was satisfiedwith the manner of the riposte which sealed that elusive first win of theseason. “To come back strongly the way we did showed a lot of resilienceand character,” he said. That’s a good sign. It also showed that there areareas of the game that we can work on. But it’s just been the first fullgame of the season for us. We have been on the road quite a bit and tohave had just one full game is quite strange.”Ponting suggested that he would analyse the previous games and the pitchconditions before deciding whether or not to bat first once again. He alsosaid that the pitches at the Kinrara Oval had been challenging for thebatsmen. “I think it’s hard work starting on that wicket, particularlywith the new ball when it is up and down. But once you get set, you canaccelerate. We’ve seen some batsmen get on and make big scores. It’s about15 or 20 balls that you have to get through, and make adjustments.”The team that adjusts best will extend their preparation for the ChampionsTrophy by one more game. For the losers, early flights home beckon, not tomention the disappointment of dropping a game in a rivalry that hascaptured the imagination like few others over the past decade.