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India were stunned by New Zealand as the Tom Latham-led side stormed to a historic Test series win recently.
Brett Lee (left) and Rohit Sharma. (PTI/BCCI)
India were expected to sail through their home season that kicked off with the Bangladesh Tests. The hosts blanked Bangladesh 2-0 in a Test series before outclassing them 3-0 in the T20I series that followed. New Zealand followed and given India’s record-breaking run of Test series wins at home, it was natural for the Rohit Sharma’s men to be branded as the clear favourites.
Throwing away all predictions out of the window, New Zealand produced what is being termed as their greatest performance in recent times as they stunned India by winning all three Tests on the tour. They beat them with seam and swing in Bengaluru before producing a superior show on pitches in Pune and Mumbai that aided spinners.
Plenty of reasons where cited for the poor show including the approach of Indian batters, the impact of playing T20 cricket among others. Australia fast bowling legend Brett Lee though has given another reason: Not taking Kiwis too seriously.
“Is it a T20 issue? Were the batsmen too attacking? Is it a skill issue? Is it a problem with them not taking the Kiwis too seriously? I think yes, on all formats,” Lee said on his YouTube channel. “They went into the series thinking that we’ll just whitewash the Kiwis, thinking that’s going to be an easy series. And that’s no disrespect to the Kiwis. It’s just that India are so powerful, so strong on home soil.”
A bruised India will now take on an Australian team that is itching to win back the Border-Gavaskar Trophy at home. The Aussies are carrying the hurt of back-to-back Test series defeats to India at home.
However, Lee thinks that India can still turn the negatives into positives and be better prepared for the tough challenge ahead.
“This is a great learning curve for all out there. Probably not for Aussies because now they’ve got to understand that India will be much-better prepared,” Lee said. “They are going to come in strong. They would have got a kick up the backside from their coach, Gautam Gambhir. This is atrocious, the way they played but they are still a team of champions. They have had a downfall over the last couple of weeks; it does happen in cricket. But this is the time to turn it into positives. The Kiwis caught India off-guard.”
