Mumbai: Sandip Patil, who was part of India’s World Cup-winning side in 1983, feels India will have to forget the wins in Australia over the last two trips as well as the unprecedented loss to New Zealand at home recently to give themselves a chance of emerging victorious Down Under.
Rohit Sharma’s Indian team will soon be hitting the Australian shores with their pride at stake, having been blanked 0-3 by New Zealand at home which has also thrown their plans for the World Test Championship into disarray.
While India look to pick the pieces and put their best foot forward during the five-Test tour of Australia, Patil, also a former chairman of selectors, expressed confidence that the team is too good to be bogged down by setbacks.
“They have to play against Australia in Australia, they will have to forget what happened there last time. They will also have to forget what happened in this series (against New Zealand) and look forward,” Patil told the media here during the launch of his book titled ‘Beyond Boundaries’ on Wednesday.
“We lost all practice games before winning the World Cup, so they should remember… you have to think positive and play positively only then you will get a positive result,” he said.
“If you play defensive cricket and think of winning, it is not going to happen,” he added.
Patil, however, said that the first-ever series whitewash to New Zealand is a wake-up call for Indian cricket.
“This (series loss) was like a wake-up call. It’s not like our team has been playing badly. A few months back they won the T20 World Cup. There are some big players in our team, surely they will bounce back,” he said.
“They must have learnt so many things from this loss,” he added.
