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'Whole team responsible for over-rate'
Stand-in Indian captain Rahul Dravid on Thursday said the players needed to address the issue of slow over-rate urgently to avoid trouble in the future.
Stand-in cricket captain Rahul Dravid on Thursday said Sourav Ganguly alone was not to be blamed for India's slow over-rate and the players needed to address the issue urgently to avoid further trouble in the future.
"It is a responsibility of the whole squad. It is an area we have to do a lot better. It is not just the captain alone but the bowlers and fielders too have to be responsible," Dravid, who will lead the team in the remaining two one-dayers against Pakistan, said.
Ganguly was banned for six one-dayers after India failed to finish their overs within the stipulated time for the second successive match in Ahmedabad on Tuesday.
However, the skipper has been cleared by the ICC to play pending resolution of his appeal against the ban.
Dravid, embarrassed at the suggestion that the team might be without him too if they continued to fail in completing the overs in time, denied it was a deliberate ploy to upset the opposition's rhythm.
"It has never been deliberate... we have got to be responsible. We have identified a couple of reasons (for the team's repeated slow over-rate) but we will discuss in the team meetings and make sure it doesn't happen again," he said on the eve of the fifth one-dayer at the Green Park stadium in Kanpur.
Dravid said the team so far had no information as to whether Ganguly would be available to play on Friday.
"We don't want to think about that. We have been doing our preparations the way we do," he said.
Dravid said talent alone would not give the team success in the series.
"We have the players to win the series but we need to play good cricket. Pakistan is a strong side and as you said, it has been five years, so it would be nice to win."
India's last series victory at home, excluding a win over Zimbabwe, came in 2000 against South Africa. They lost to Australia and the West Indies besides a tri-series, and were tied by England in a six-match series.
The Karnataka batsman expected the track to be a traditional slow, low-bounce wicket and hoped it did not turn huge later in the day to make the toss a decisive factor.
