We’ll need special effort to beat England: Gautam Gambhir
KOLKATA: In the World Cup, it gets tougher with each passing stage and now that India is in the knockout stages, the difficulty quotient has gone up a notch.
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England, their opponents in the second semi-final in Mumbai on Thursday, have gone somewhat under the radar in the opening matches but Indian head coach Gautam Gambhir insisted his team will have to be at their best to beat them on Thursday.
“They are a world-class team,” Gambhir said. “They have a lot of quality players and Wankhede is a difficult stadium. I hope we can get there and get another opportunity to do something special. I hope we play our best game and continue to tick all the boxes. We will need a special effort to beat a quality team like them.
“I don’t believe in this idea of ‘peaking at the right time,’” Gambhir said. “You have to win every match when you represent your country, as simple as that can be. It’s a short tournament so you have to try to play your ‘A’ game every time and it’s a format where you can’t take any opposition for granted.”
The current strategy involves a lot of data analysis and video analysis, but for Gambhir, instinct always trumps everything else. “I’ve never seen the data,” he said. “I don’t even know what the data is for. I definitely don’t believe in it because I think it’s more about instinct. T20 cricket is about instinct and supporting your instinct. Whatever knowledge I have about the game and the T20 format, I try to give it probably to the captain, I try to help him as much as I can.”
Batting coach Sitanshu Kotak echoed Gambhir in saying that facing England will not be easy. “We have to show up and execute,” he said, adding: “Abhishek Sharma had a lot of success against England. It will be a tough match but I think we will do well.”
