da bet nacional： With confidence gained from a spirited series win against Australia, adetermined Indian team embarked on a 46-day tour of Zimbabwe early onFriday, raring to break a 15-year jinx of not winning a Test seriesoutside the subcontinent
25-May-2001With confidence gained from a spirited series win against Australia, adetermined Indian team embarked on a 46-day tour of Zimbabwe early onFriday, raring to break a 15-year jinx of not winning a Test seriesoutside the subcontinent.The team management comprising coach John Wright, vice-captain RahulDravid – skipper Saurav Ganguly was to join the team later tonight -and manager Chetan Chauhan was confident about winning the two-Testseries against Zimbabwe and the following triangular one-daytournament with West Indies as the third team.”The boys are aware that India has not won a series abroad in the past15 years and they are brimming with confidence to break the jinx,”Chauhan told reporters in Mumbai on Thursday. He said the performancein the recent home series against Australia had given them “a muchneeded boost”. Ganguly could not attend the joint press conference ashe was held up in Kolkata due to “some personal reasons” and wouldjoin the team just before their departure, according to Chauhan.Dravid said the important thing was a good performance by the team andthe rest would take care of itself. “It is important to concentrate onthe basic processes without getting unduly excited over the result.Our job is to play good cricket with a positive frame of mind and notto get preoccupied with results”, Dravid said.Wright echoed his views, saying that he does not have a ‘magicformula’ for the Indian cricket team to win a series abroad andbelieves the players have to work on their basics to get a positiveresult. “There is no magic formula in cricket. You have to do what isrequired at a particular time and play to potential”, said Wright.”Execution of genuine play, bowling a good line and length and justdoing the basic things right is what all that is needed to win a matchor a series”, Wright added.Dravid said “Zimbabwe will pose an exciting challenge. They are a goodside and played a good series in India last year. They are a good unittogether”. On India’s failure to win a series on foreign soil for thelast 15 years, he said, “certainly the boys are aware of it but theydon’t think about it. This time we would like to win the series andturn a new page.” About the conditioning camp held in Bangalore,Dravid said it was of good quality and added, “the guys put in a lotof hard work and surely there is an increase in their fitness level.”Asked which Zimbabwe players he considered a ‘threat’ to the Indianteam, Wright said “Andy Flower and Heath Streak might pose some threatas both are world class players. However, there is no question offearing anybody.” Commenting on the World Test Championships, bothDravid and Wright said it was a ‘good concept’ and gave a chance forevery team to play each other.