Assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate on Friday said a below-par performance in the preceding Test series has put a certain amount of “desperation” in the Indian team to win the ongoing ODI series against South Africa. India lost the two-match Test rubber 0-2 to the Proteas recently, and the one-day series is now levelled at 1-1. “It’s a very different personnel of players but the guys are very aware of the responsibility of what they’re representing,” ten Doeschate said here on the eve of the series-deciding third ODI.
KL Rahul’s side won the first match at Ranchi by 17 runs, but SA pulled one back at Raipur with a four-wicket victory. “We always want to win, but yeah, certainly, when a few losses start stacking up, and performances have been below what we expect from ourselves, I think it’s a slight desperation from the series point of view,” he added.
But ten Doeschate was quick to add that the team members have been quite used to tackling such pressure situations. “I don’t think pressure ever goes away for this team. You know, bilateral series, when the series is on the line, there is an element of pressure there in itself. We try to focus on the process. We try and assess what’s going to be a good score and then the batting unit has to go about getting it,” he said.
The former Dutch all-rounder admitted the dew played a massive role in the last two matches, and was aware that it could be a factor here too on Saturday. “The dew factor is so big here. It’s obviously not our fault, but it is our responsibility to find a way to get around that. I think we’re doing pretty well in the defending department now (if India is bowling second).
“And obviously, we have assessed this as a high-scoring ground with fairly small boundaries. But the biggest challenge again is going to be sorting out the disparity between batting first and batting second, and that is the biggest challenge for us,” he explained. Right now, the match starts at 1.30 pm, and does a slightly early start negate the dew factor? Ten Doeschate said it was a good line of thought, but acknowledged the futility considering the broadcast needs.
“Just on the timing, I think it’s, you know, the fact that the dew kind of falls as the second innings starts, and it means that the dew is there for the whole time. So, a different start time could bring that effect down a little bit and slow it to hours earlier. “There is a solution, but obviously, there are so many moving parts to play in terms of broadcasting, etc. So I guess it’s a futile conversation,” he said. Ten Doeschate said the Indian team as a batting group did try to tailor to the need of extra runs in these conditions, and trained accordingly at nets.
“We actually tried to factor it into our batting. You know, at the start of the first game, we thought 320 was sort of high, and then we put a frame on that 350; even given the ball coming, it was a good effort to get that score. “You always want more runs, and again the conversations have been around how can we maximise it, even then sometimes the conditions make it tough, but again the responsibility is to find ways in tough conditions,” he noted. (PTI)
