'You know, bilateral series, when the series is on the line, there is an element of pressure there in itself.'
Assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate on Friday said a below-par performance in the preceding Test series has put a certain amount of "desperation" in the Indian team to win the ongoing ODI series against South Africa.
India lost the two-match Test rubber 0-2 and the one-day series is now tied at 1-1.
KL Rahul's side won the first match in Ranchi by 17 runs but the Proteas pulled one back in Raipur with a four-wicket victory.
“It's a very different personnel of players but the guys are very aware of the responsibility of what they're representing,” Ten Doeschate said on the eve of the series-deciding third ODI in Visakhapatnam.
“We always want to win but, yeah certainly, when a few losses do start stacking up and performances have been below what we expect from ourselves, I think it's a slight desperation from the series point of view.”
But Ten Doeschate was quick to add that the team members have been quite used to tackling such pressure situations.
“I don't think pressure ever goes away for this team. You know, bilateral series, when the series is on the line, there is an element of pressure there in itself. We try to focus on the process. We try and assess what's going to be a good score and then the batting unit has to go about getting it,” he said.
The former Dutch all-rounder admitted the dew played a massive role the last two matches, and was aware that it could be a factor on Saturday too.
“The dew factor is so big here. It's obviously not our fault but it is our responsibility to find a way to get around. I think we're doing pretty well in the defending department now (if India bowl second).
“And obviously we have assessed this is a high-scoring ground with fairly small boundaries. But the biggest challenge again is going to be sorting out the disparity between batting first and batting second, and that is the biggest challenge for us.”
The match is scheduled to start at 1.30pm, and does a slightly early start negate the dew factor?
“Just on the timing, I think it's, you know, the fact that the dew kind of falls as the second innings starts and it means that the dew is there for the whole time. So, a different start time could bring that effect down a little bit and slow it to hours early.
“There is a solution but obviously there are so many moving parts to play in terms of broadcasting etc. So I guess it's a futile conversation.”
He said the Indian batting unit did try to tailor in the need of extra runs in these conditions, and trained accordingly at the nets.
“We actually tried to factor it into our batting. You know in the start of the first game we thought 320 was sort of high and then we put a frame on that 350, even given the ball coming it was a good effort to get that score.
“You always want more runs and again the conversations have been around how can we maximise it, even then sometimes the conditions make it tough but again the responsibility is to find ways in tough conditions,” he added.
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