Ganguly: Sehwag's knock took the game away from England

Anand Vasu

September 22, 2002

Indian captain Sourav Ganguly grinned from ear to ear when he met the press after his side waltzed to an eight-wicket win over England to set up a semi-final clash against South Africa.

Centuries from Ganguly and Virender Sehwag ensured that that India overhauled the target of 271 with more than 10 overs to spare.

"We should not have allowed England to get to 270, but Sehwag's 100 took the game away from England," began the Indian captain.

Not too many people expected India to beat England with such ease and Ganguly echoed this. "This game is never easy," said the skipper.

He was effusive in his praise of Sehwag's knock, saying, " Sehwag's innings was absolutely brilliant and took the pressure away from us. The way he played was took the sting out of the game. By the time he was dismissed the game was already in our pocket. Unless something went terribly wrong, we were going to win from that position."

Nasser Hussain for his part admitted that his England side were totally outclassed on the day.

"Nothing went wrong really. India just played exceptionally well on the day. The first eight overs they bowled were very difficult for our batsmen and again when they batted their first 15 overs were very good. Sometimes you just have to give credit where it's due."

The England skipper seemed powerless to stop the onslaught of the Indian batsmen and conceded that nothing he tried on the day worked for him.

"We've played against India a lot and have studied their game carefully. We know what areas they do most of their hitting in and have thought of a few ways to restrict that. It just didn't work today though.

"Both openers came at us strongly and we didn't have an answer. We need to show more character in situations like this. We're all right when teams don't quite come at us as strongly as this and we'll have to work out ways to counter this."

Hussain acknowledged that his side had problems when batsmen came at them and pointed out a couple of areas where England need to improve to counter this.

"We need to show more character in these situations. And variations become important too. We tried a few variations today, slower balls and bumpers and the like. But today everything we bowled seemed to go for four. In English conditions where the ball does a bit more off the wicket and in the air you don't need to do much more than put the ball in the right place. In conditions like this you need more variations."

Not totally distraught at the loss, Hussain did look back positively at the way the batting fared.

"As far as the batting is concerned I'm quite pleased with the way we've done. In the last year or so the batting has not been a cause for worry. Even today I thought the middle-order batted exceptionally to take us to 270."

Ganguly has now led India to more than one dramatic win against England. He did however say that there were other wins that gave him more satisfaction.

"Every win is satisfying really, at the international level. But I would have to say that the win at Lord's in the NatWest trophy final and the Test win at Headingley probably mean more to me."

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