Kozhikode: The forthcoming World Cup tie will be a tough encounter for India with Australia looking a very formidable team, cricket legend Kapil Dev said on Tuesday.
"The margin of doubt is there on our winning chances although it is not impossible," he told reporters. Rating Australia as the firm favourites to lift the World Cup, Kapil, who is here in connection with a function to launch Kinetic Engineering Company's latest Vehicle "Kinetic Boss", said if Indians could qualify for the top six, then they could make it. "Still, it is going to be very tough for us", he said. "No other team in the world is as consistent as Australia today. They have a brilliant bowling and batting line- up besides a roaring field," the Wisden Indian-Cricketer-of-the-Century said. All other teams were struggling to maintain consistency, he said referring to the reverses suffered by Pakistan and South Africa in the ongoing One-day series. Asked about the Indian World Cup team formation, he said the selectors so far had been doing a very good job, giving even chances to all the team members. "Don't criticise them, they a re doing a decent job," he said. On considering young Parthiv Patel as the second wicket-keeper, the star cricketer of yesteryear said, "It is important for us to win the World Cup and it does not matter much who kept the wickets as long as he does well with the bat too," he said referring to Dravid's continuing role with the gloves. The conditions in South Africa, hosting the World Cup, were totally different and to some extent not to our liking, Kapil said, adding however we had to fight as a team to emerge winners. Asked if the "killer instinct" witnessed during the 1983 World Cup which India won was missing now, Kapil said, "Everyone is still talking about that win, but the game itself has changed in the last 20 years and many countries are showing much more aggression." On Sanjay Bangar, he said Bangar had played only five One-dayers so far and played well in two of them. "Let us give him more opportunities at this time and groom him as an all-rounder," he said. As regards Kerala's only prospect medium pacer Tinu Yohannan, the former skipper said, "Tinu has a long way to go." Zaheer Khan had been performing extremely well in both Tests and One-dayers, while Ashish Nehra, although promising and talented, was yet to live up to expectations, he said. India was struggling to produce good pace bowlers as the present set of domestic cricketers mostly wanted to establish as batsmen, Kapil said. "Maybe, we are not looking at this area very seriously," he said.
Tags: cricket, kozhikode, world cup, india, australia, kapil dev, australia wisden indian-cricketer-of-the-century, pakistan, south africa, parthiv patel, rahul dravid, sanjay bangar, tinu yohannan, ashish nehra.
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