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It all ended even before it began
It is sad, but the Holland tri-series actually never started for the Indian team. In just two rainy days everything was over, writes Ganguly.
It is sad, but the Holland tri-series actually never started for us. In just two rainy days everything was over. The 30-over bashes didn't work for us. The venue reminded me of Toronto -- very beautiful and picturesque. I have a feeling that it might become a regular stop-over for teams coming to this part of the world in the near future.
The facilities provided were not very great, but it is understandable because this is the first major tournament organized by the Dutch cricket board.
There was a lot of interest for the India-Pakistan match with people even coming from the United States to watch the game. Amazing, but it is true. It's like that no matter where we play Pakistan.
The wicket over here for our two games was not up to international standards. The ball kept very low and came slowly off the track, making stroke-making extremely hazardous. Winning the toss, therefore, was of crucial importance as the top surface tended to come off as the game progressed.
We let Pakistan off the hook after getting few quick wickets and they took the game away from us in the last three overs. Abdur Razzaq played a very key role.
The small ground suited his style of batting and he is probably the most dangerous Pakistani batsman in ODIs these days. His bowling has also picked up in the last couple of months making him a very handy man to have in the side.
However, the most improved cricketer in Pakistan today is Shoaib Malik. He has now won Man of the Match in the last two games against us and considering the fact that we will be once again facing Pakistan in the Champions Trophy we will have to find a way to stop Malik from scoring against us.
Our performance against Australia was much better. I was very happy with our fielding. I thought we were outstanding in the field. The only thing which bothers me is that if we are capable of fielding like this then why don' we do it every day!
Restricting Australia to 170 was a decent effort but the rain put paid to all our hopes of making it to the final.
This is one of those peculiar tournaments from which we failed to take out anything.
We have two major assignments coming up in England where the conditions and the facilities will be completely different. We need to do a lot of planning before taking on England in the NatWest Series and the ICC Champions Trophy after that.
