Boycott backs India to win England ODI series
NEW DELHI: Despite India losing the recent One-day International series against Pakistan, former England captain Geoffrey Boycott feels that the hosts still stand a better chance of winning the upcoming five-match series against England, starting in Rajkot on Friday.
“…it’s about 60-40 in India’s favour, I would say, in this series to come,” Boycott said on Wednesday. “I don’t think India will be as tough to beat as they were. They’ll still be tough in their own country, they’ve still got a lot of other good players.
“Mahendra Singh Dhoni is a fantastic player, there’s [Virat] Kohli — they are good players. It just gives England a bit more of a chance, maybe, but I believe India are right to try and plan ahead and move forward.
“India are trying out one or two new fast bowlers. They are making Ravindra Jadeja a major spinner; we all know about his batting, and his triple-hundreds, but you make him like a spinner, get some young fast bowlers in, because Zaheer Khan is more or less past it,” he added.
The ex-English cricketer said the Indian team should not get too worried as the recent slump of form can be attributed to the transition phase it is going through after the retirement of seniors such as Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid.
“I like young batsman [Ajinkya] Rahane, he looks promising. And I know that losing to Pakistan may hurt a lot of supporters of Indian cricket. That’s part and parcel of moving forward, trying new guys, moving towards an end product which is the World Cup in Australia.
“You’ve always got to remember you are the world champions,” Boycott said.
Boycott said it is important to try new players as it’s only two years to go for the 50-over World Cup.
“You’ve got nearly two years, a year and a half, to the World Cup. You’ve got to use that time in the one-dayers to form one or two youngsters to go with the experienced guys. You’ve got to move forward and give these guys opportunities to see how they
perform,” he stressed.—Agencies
Your assesment is totaly based on facts,Indian team is going through a transition period after retirement of sehwag,tandulkat ,dravid,harbhajan and zahir.Any team will loose its face after loosing so many key players.But india has a pool of very talented players who after a brief international experince will be ready to go as the next world cup in an year or so.as far as loosing heart after loosing to Pakistan,everybody knows that pakistan have lost to india at every major tournament in past few years,they were living in a vacume after the world body trashed them.They had no hope regardless of someremarkable new players and therefore they had a uppertuinity of life time when India granted them a minni ODI and T/20 series.Pakistan have found happiness of life time of winning ODI series 3/2 and drawing the T/20 series with depleted indian side.They are overjoyed by their accomplishment but they must not forget the fact that India’s team is going through a transition phase and will come back soon to haunt them in next major event.Just wait and see.