da winzada777： The Mumbai Test will be Rahul Dravid’s 100th, but for the man himselfit is business as usual as he dwells on what the team needed to do to seal the series victory against England
Cricinfo staff17-Mar-2006
‘Four bowlers will not be a backward step, and five will not be anover-aggressive step’ © AFP
On playing his 100th Test
It’s special, in the sense that I’ll be joining a list of five otherIndians who have been legendary cricketers. So from that point of viewit’s a great feeling. But it’s just another Test match as well. The focusis on playing good cricket and trying to win the match. So while I havehad time to reflect over the last couple of days and be grateful for a lotof things in my career, I think today it’s just time to look forward andtry on focus on the main task which is really to try to win a Test match.Statictics and numbers are great and nice to reflect upon, but whileyou’re playing the game it’s important that you focus on the cricket,whether it’s your 100th game, or the 101st, or the 98th. I’m preparing forthis match just as I would for any other game of cricket.Thoughts on the pitch
It looks a good, firm wicket. It should have good bounce and carry earlyon, but i think as the sun beats down on it, as the game goes on, the redsoil will help take some spin maybe towards the end of the first day orthe second day.Four bowlers or five?
We are formulating a few thoughts. We’ll see what’s best for the side. I’mobviously not going to announce the team here today, but we have theoption of playing five bowlers and we will look at that seriously. We alsoknow we have some quality batsmen who miss out if we play five bowlers, sothat’s another tempting feeling – to play some of the quality batsmen wehave. We’ll see and decide tomorrow. We are not going to be defensive inthis game at all. If we do play four bowlers that does not mean we aregoing defensive. The philosophy is to take 20 wickets in the match, andwe’ll take the kind of bowlers we think can get us 20 wickets. Fourbowlers will not be a backward step, and five will not be anover-aggressive step.Reactions to Steve Harmison missing out
A little disappointed for England. Harmison’s been a standout performer.Having said that they have some good young bowlers as well and sometimesit gives a youngster who’s been sitting in the sidelines an opportunity,and we’ve seen that when we have given young kids an opportunity they havegrabbed it. We will have to play someone new, someone we haven’t playedbefore, so thats a new challenge for us.Whether the team is relieved that England’s fastest bowler isn’tplaying
We look forward to challenges, to playing the best bowlers, that’s whatinternational cricket is about. And the guys in my team are provenperformers who have played against the quickest and some of the bestbowlers in the world.What the team has done during the four-day break
We had a couple of good days of training. We had a couple of days off.Some of the boys went back home and celebrated Holi with their families,some of the boys spent a couple of days relaxing in Mumbai. The guys arenow really keen and looking forward to the match.On Monty Panesar
He has bowled very well, considering it’s his first tour with the Englandteam. To come to India and bowl against some of our good batsmen … Ithink he has done a good job. England can be pleased. They missed AshleyGiles, but they must be heartened to see that there’s a young kid who cancome in and do the same job that Giles has been doing for them.On Sachin Tendulkar, who will become the most capped player Indian Testplayer
Tendulkar has been a colossus. What he has done in the last 16 years, tocarry the pressures that he has had to carry, the way people have lookedup to him, i think he has been an icon of the Indian cricket team. Andthat’s not an easy thing to do over a period of 16 years. Just to see himgrow and develop to being the best batsman in the world and to see what hehas achieved and the way he has carried himself through it all has beenphenomenal.On whether Tendulkar isn’t as big a hero as he was a few yearsback
He still is a very big hero. But a lot of new young kids come through,there’s a new excitement about youngsters coming through and that’s thecircle of life. When Sachin was a kid there was a lot of interest abouthim, now people seem to know everything about him, so there’s an intereston the young kids coming through. I still think he’s a huge hero and stillvery respected and adored by so many millions of people.