Having spent five years as India‘s batting coach, Sanjay Bangar has been replaced by Vikram Rathour after India’s dismal show in the ICC World Cup. However, nothing gives him more happiness than India reaching the number 1 rank of Test rankings during his tenure. He said n an interview with ESPNcricinfo.
Sanjay Bangar
“It has been a memorable journey [India going] from No. 7 in the world to No. 1 in Test cricket,” Bangar said. “The team won 30 out of 52 Test matches played, including 13 overseas Test victories. In ODI cricket, the team won in all overseas countries convincingly. Overall, the team won 82 out of 122 matches. So it gives me immense pride that I was part of this phase of Indian cricket, for which I am grateful to the BCCI and to all the head coaches I worked with – Duncan [Fletcher], Ravi [Shastri] and Anil [Kumble] – for giving me an opportunity to serve the Indian cricket team for five consecutive years,” he added.
“I believe that South African conditions are the most challenging in the international circuit, especially Cape Town and Johannesburg,” Bangar revealed. “We faced those conditions on our tour of 2018, and we also had very little time to adjust there – precisely six days before the first Test started. Those Test matches were the toughest one could encounter. The team is very proud of one of the most courageous displays by our batting group in Johannesburg in a memorable victory. And then to go on and dominate the ODI series and win it 5-1 was equally praiseworthy,” he said. “Our batting in Australia, in 2014-15 and 2018-19 was outstanding, amongst the best ever by a visiting side. The top-order batting in particular was very good across all tours.”
“In overseas conditions, perhaps we lacked runs lower down the order. We have allrounders in the spin department, which helps in India, but in overseas conditions, we didn’t have as many fast-bowling allrounders. Our top and middle order out-batted the opposition, but the lower order did better for the opposition,” Sanjay Bangar expressed.
“The team management was able to achieve a mindset shift of playing outside their [players’] comfort zones by often batting first, irrespective of the conditions. I am very happy with the results achieved not only by the top order but also by Wriddhiman Saha, Ravindra Jadeja, R Ashwin and Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the lower order. Credit to the work the players put in and their drive to achieve excellence,” he concluded.
