Mumbai: India’s aim to be the No.1 side in one day Internationals and Twenty20 has already been achieved and they are just four wickets away from achieving the feat in ICC Test rankings.
Coach Gary Kirsten, who can take some credit for India’s ascent, said on Saturday that the aim to be the best team in Tests started before India’s tour to Australia 18 months back.
“It is something we aspired 18 months back before the tour of Australia. We wanted to become the best Test team in the world. That will be a great achievement (when it happens),” Kirsten told the media after the fourth day’s proceedings at the Brabourne Stadium.
The former South Africa opener gave credit to the players.
“A lot of credit goes to the players. They all stood up to be counted at various times in these last 18 months to build a very powerful top-seven batting line-up. The bowlers, too, have obviously done the job they needed to do. I am very happy from that perspective,” he added.
Gary knows it won’t be easy to retain the spot and India will have to be consistent to secure it for a long time. “We need to continue playing the same type of cricket we are playing to perform well in all conditions, against every team and that is what we have been doing for the last 18 months and we need to continue that.”
It was tough for Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s team to reach the top but they took one step at a time, said Gary.
“We set that goal and then we moved on and focused on what we need to do on a daily basis and what we were trying to achieve in every Test match, how we are going to set up the Test wins or make sure we don’t lose games.”
“We really focused on what we needed to do every day, every Test match and every series. We knew that if we set that up day in and day out there would be a time when we would become the best in the world,” he said.
Kirsten was happy with fourth day’s proceedings and was impressed with his bowlers’ performance.
“It was a great day. If someone had said we’d get six wickets throughout the day we’d have been extremely happy. It was a fantastic day. All the bowlers did really well. The second session was big and to pick up four wickets was amazing. I thought in the first session we kept it really tight. In that way we built some pressure and then created some opportunities after that. The third session wasn’t as good, the boys had got really tired.”
On Virender Sehwag’s knock of 293, Gary said “I have seen a lot of Sehwag knocks that are highly entertaining and he continues to do it. The 300 that he got last year was as entertaining but even when Viru gets 40 it is an exciting knock. He wasn’t disappointed at all. He put us in a really good situation,” he added.
–Agencies–