Aggression is fine but you also need performance with that – Sourav Ganguly on India’s knockout games woes

Former Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly believes the team India needs to match aggression with performance in the big knockout matches of ICC. India has failed to cross the last hurdle as a unit in the knockout games of the major events and thus hasn’t won a silverware in the last decade.

India last won the 2013 Champions Trophy but recently lost the World Test Championship final against Australia by 209 runs. In fact, it has been noticed that India’s batting hasn’t been consistent in Test matches and Ganguly feels India needs to put pressure on the opposition as a batting unit.

The likes of Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, and Ajinkya Rahane haven’t been consistent enough and they have failed to put enough runs on the board.

While talking to Star Sports, Sourav Ganguly said, “Aggression is fine but you also need performance with that. If you see the five-six years between 2001 and 2006, India’s batting scored 500-600 runs in big-big venues, whether it was Sydney, Brisbane, Headingley, Nottingham, Oval, Peshawar, Islamabad or Lahore, due to which they put the opposition team under pressure.”

“So I feel the Indian team will have to do that somewhere or the other. I understand cricket has changed slightly between what it was 10 years ago and now, the situations and wickets have changed, but India will have to see that they score 350-400 runs in the first innings in Test cricket.”

Ganguly refused to agree that Indian players lack self-belief as they drew the series in England and have also won on the last two tours to Australia by 2-1.

“I don’t agree that this team does not have the belief. We played well in England in 2021 and before that, we played good cricket in Australia in 2020-21, where Rishabh Pant won us the series on the last day, I feel that happens with belief only.”

The former skipper, who took Indian cricket to new heights, feels the players need to manage their workload with guile and regroup as a unit.

“They play so much cricket and travel a lot, so it probably goes slightly back for a short time, so they need to recoup that and bring it back, which I feel is absolutely possible.”

India will tour West Indies for two Test matches, three ODIs and five T20Is.