Geoffery Boycott gave a detailed account of where India lost the third ODI against England at Egbaston and how 'Team India' can come back in the seven match series. On India's decision to bat second at Egbaston, Boycott said "I think it would have been better for India to bat first. I have always been a believer that India play better when they bat first. I think they are not as good chasing as they are batting first. Somebody will come up with statistics and tell me they have done just as well chasing. But I think if you are chasing and it’s a small total, then it’s easy but if you have to chase a big total, I don’t think they are that clever." When asked about India's team composition and the think tank's tactic to play the extra bowler for a batsman, he said "Whatever team you pick, weather you pick an extra batsman or an extra bowler, the crux of the matter is how well they play and quite frankly, Indian seam bowling wasn’t too clever. Munaf Patel was quite poor. I am a big fan of his but he did not look fit to me. He looked stiff in the back, he was bowling within himself, that about 8-10 miles slower than he should be bowling." Boycott wasn't impressed with the Indian fielding either. "The Indian fielding in the outfield was pretty poor, it has been a bone of contention for quite some time, a number of Indian fielders are pretty poor athletes in the outfield. They don’t save enough runs which in the end could be crucial to winning a match, too many easy singles for England, fielders saving ones gave easy runs away. They were sleeping on the back-foot, they were not ready for it. They were not alert," he said. When asked about India's batting performance Boycott said, "Sourav (Ganguly) played pretty well, played sensibly. Rahul Dravid played some marvelous shots, some of them were absolutely fantastic, and Yuvraj Singh, I could never understand why Karthik could bat above him. He’s a match winner, Dinesh Karthik is not. I think they should shove him up the order. You got to say 'you are the next match winner.' Introspecting on the overall match Boycott felt England was the better team on Monday. He said "England played better than India. They bowled well, Jimmy Anderson and Broad bowled fantastically. They got England to a great start, they bowled tight and they kept Tendulkar tied down. Jimmy Andersen has got Sachin out quite a few times. So Sachin has to think about that." "I think England gave a far better performance than India," the former England opener added. On the rest of the series and India's prospects to bounce back, he felt India has to improve on it's grey areas and show more intensity on the field. "I think they can comeback, they are still a very talented side, but they got to improve in certain areas. When you are playing one day cricket you can do well for twenty minutes, 5 overs and then suddenly the game can go away from you. If you have had 2-3 overs from a bowler, if you drop catches, misfield, then suddenly the whole tenure of the game changes. You got to be on the ball and up for it every single ball, every single minute for the three and a half hours you are on the field. You switch off, loose concentration then you have lost the game," Geoffery Boycott concluded. Article Source: Cricketnext.com
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