India’s assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate on Friday (December 5) admitted that there is a slight “desperation” in the Indian camp to win the ongoing ODI series against South Africa after a below-par outing in the Test series.
The hosts suffered a humiliating 0-2 whitewash at the hands of Proteas in the Test rubber, and the three-match ODI series is currently poised 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 told reporters on the eve of the series-deciding third ODI in Vizag.
The Men in Blue won the ODI series opener in Ranchi by 17 runs before South Africa bounced back to register a four-wicket victory in Raipur.
“We always want to win but, yeah certainly, when a few losses do 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 Indian cricketers have been quite used to facing 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 Dutchman emphasized the key role played by dew in the first two ODIs, and expects it to be a big factor in the series finale as well.
“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 is 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.
The ODI matches of the ongoing series begin at 1.30 PM, and a slightly early start could negate the dew factor. While ten Doeschate said it was a good line of thought, he highlighted that it is pointless given 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 early."
“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 remarked.
The assistant coach said the Indian team as a batting group did try to tailor in the need of extra runs in these conditions, and trained accordingly at nets.
“We actually tried to factor it into our batting. You know in 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.
(With PTI Inputs)
