No excuse for our Test performances against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/England-c56013 and Australia: Suresh Raina – Cricket News Update
Indian batsman, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746.
“No excuse when you play at the international level, you have to perform really well against the good opposition. I think we did not plan really well against the Aussies and England. We learnt from those mistakes and moved to good cricket,” he said.
The World Cup champions experienced a string of embarrassing failures in Test series away from home. The http://www.senore.com/Cricket/West-Indies-c760 remained the only team the Men in Blue were able to defeat - after a 1-0 (3) Test series win against the Windies in the Caribbean during
June-July last year, the national squad went on to claim a 2-0 (3) win against the same opponents in November 2011, this time on home grounds.
However, they experienced a humiliating defeat at the hands of England in July-August, when they were thumped 0-4, in a Test series. Their next away Test series was similarly shocking – they went into the Border-Gavaskar Trophy Down Under in December 2011-January
2012 as the team placed at number 2 on Test team rankings, and again suffered a 0-4 defeat.
However, Raina was optimistic about his team’s ability to bounce back, despite the setbacks.
“Hopefully, we’ll do well in the abroad series and work really hard in the Test series,” he said.
“We have done really well in one-day cricket,” the 25-year-old went on to add. “Hopefully, we'll improve our cricket in Test matches also. As a team, we have always done well but we have to do well in Test matches especially in abroad.”
India’s ODI performances were at an all-time low during the Commonwealth Bank series – they managed to win only 3 of the 8 matches they played, and were consistently at the bottom of the points table, failing to make it to the tournament finals. However,
they managed to end on a high note, defeating Sri Lanka by 7 wickets in their last match of the series at Hobart, owing largely to an unbeaten 133 by http://www.senore.com/Cricket/V-Kohli-c2737.
The Asia Cup was a similar disaster for the Men In Blue. They lost to underdogs http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 in the 5th match of the tournament.
In addition to his observations on the team’s performances, Raina added that he was looking to secure a place for himself in the national Test squad. The left-hander has only played 15 Test matches after making his debut in 2010 against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Sri-Lanka-c758 in Colombo,
and has 710 runs at an average of 29.58 to his name.
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