Bangalore, Aug 30 (IANS) New Zealand captain Ross Taylor said that his boys have to forget their huge defeat in the first Test as they brace up to take on India in the second Test starting here Friday.
The Kiwis had suffered a shocking defeat in the first Test by an innings and 115 runs at Hyderabad August 26.
“We have to forget the defeat quickly and move on to the next game. At the team meeting, we have decided to fight back and are working hard to play against spin this time. It is never easy losing a Test match by an innings. We will attack the spinners as we have nothing to lose,” Ross Taylor told reporters Thursday at a pre-match press conference here.
Admitting that it was tough playing against a strong team like India in India as the conditions were favourable to the home team, Taylor said the team had devised a strategy to tackle the Indian spin duo Ravichandran Ashwin and Pragyan Ojha to stay in the contest and try to level the two-Test series.
“We have to be brave and courageous to launch an attack and put pressure on them (spinners). Then the other batsmen can bat confidentially,” Taylor asserted.
Ashwin and Ojha took 18 wickets between them in the Hyderabad Test, with the Tamil Nadu offie picking up dozen in both innings.
Hinting that there would be no change in the batting order so as to give another chance for those who played in the first Test, Taylor said they would get another opportunity to perform and fight back.
Echoing Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Taylor said the first session would be important for both teams as it would test the ability and strength of the players with bat or ball.
“We have experienced in the last three-four Tests that it takes one bad session to ruin a match. We don’t want to look too far ahead. We want to take Test by Test and session by session,” Taylor observed.
Noting that it was too early to gauge the pitch and how it would behave as the game progressed, Taylor said the wicket condition would depend on the weather as it had been raining in Bangalore over the days with an overcast sky most of the time.
“We have to see how much sun the pitch gets as it has been mostly cloudy since we landed here Tuesday and started practicing Wednesday. Though it (pitch) looks hard at top, it could be soft beneath. It is bound to change depending on the weather we get during the match,” Taylor pointed out.
On his batting form as he scored only two hundreds in the last 30 Test innings, Taylor said though it was not great, he felt he was not far away from making big runs as he was working hard to bat well and stay at the pitch for longer.
Asked for his comments on the criticism of former New Zealand coach Mark Greatbatch that the Kiwis failed to play spinners in the sub-continent despite specialised training on how to play them back home, Taylor said there were no two opinions on the need to tackle spinners if they had to win in the sub-continent.
“We are great critics of ourselves. I am also too critical about myself. I am disappointed over how I have played and I would like to improve in the next innings,” he quipped.
The Kiwis are hoping to level the series by taking advantage of the damp pitch and its green tinge if the weather continues to remain inclement and the sky overcast.
