Cruise mode ran into turbulence before Indians won

Lynn McConnell

January 11, 2003

Indian captain Sourav Ganguly thought his side was home and hosed with four or five overs to go in Auckland tonight but New Zealand came bouncing back in an exciting finish - the best finish of a ball-dominated series.

"We were cruising at one stage, but we lost a few wickets in the middle and came down to the last over," he said.

That was not unusual, India had been there before, but it was unusual in this series because of the way the pitches had been.

"Winning the toss is very important in this country, it puts you ahead by 10% which is quite a lot in one-day cricket," he said.

Today's pitch, as opposed to that used in the Boxing Day debacle, was a better pitch as witnessed by the runs scored, but it had still managed to fool both captains as they left out their respective spin bowlers.

"I thought we bowled very well until the last three overs, that doesn't usually happen because Zaheer [Khan] is fantastic at the death," he said.

However, it was his own bowling which was costly, especially as New Zealand fast bowler Shane Bond achieved his highest score in One-Day Internationals with 31 not out off 15 balls, including three sixes and two fours, and he took 18 runs off Ganguly's last over, the 49th of the innings. His previous highest was 26.

"It was good to get back to the winning streak, but as I said before I kept on losing important tosses," he said.

Ganguly could also reflect on his best batting of the series in a 70-run opening stand with Virender Sehwag.

But India also have problems with their own bowling disciplines as they were docked an over in their chase, and it came very close to being their undoing.

"We were surprised today to be penalised our overs, we were working through the overs very well because we knew we had to with five seamers. We had to do that and did it right from the start," he said adding that he thought various stoppages had not been worth the docking penalty.

India did get home, however, and Ganguly can head to Hamilton tomorrow with another rare positive from the tour under his belt.

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