Former India captain Sourav Ganguly believes that India need to match aggression with performance to win knockout games in ICC events. However, India suffered a 209-run loss in the World Test Championship (WTC) final against Australia earlier this month as well and that extended their wait for an ICC trophy since the 2013 Champions Trophy. During an interaction on the Star Sports show ‘Follow the Blues’, Ganguly shared his views.
“Aggression is fine but you also need performance with that. If you see the five-six years between 2001 and 2006, India’s batting scored 500-600 runs in big-big venues, whether it was Sydney, Brisbane, Headingley, Nottingham, Oval, Peshawar, Islamabad or Lahore, due to which they put the opposition team under pressure. So I feel the Indian team will have to do that somewhere or the other. I understand cricket has changed slightly between what it was 10 years ago and now, the situations and wickets have changed, but India will have to see that they score 350-400 runs in the first innings in Test cricket,” he stated.
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However, India were bowled out for 296 and 234 in their two innings in the recent WTC final as well. They were bowled out for 217 and 170 in their two innings in the 2021 WTC final against New Zealand and eventually lost as well. However, Sourav Ganguly also opined on whether India lacks self-confidence and stated that workload might be impacting the Indian players as well.
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“I don’t agree that this team does not have the belief. We played well in England in 2021 and before that, we played good cricket in Australia in 2020-21, where Rishabh Pant won us the series on the last day, I feel that happens with belief only. They play so much cricket and travel a lot, so it probably goes slightly back for a short time, so they need to recoup that and bring it back, which I feel is absolutely possible.”Ganguly concluded
