With two belligerent sides locked in a 3-3 stalemate, Saturday's series decider
at Lord's promises to be a cracker and Team India captain Rahul Dravid
oozed confidence that his side would end up on the right side of a humdinger.
India showed tremendous resilience in the series against England and trailing
1-3 at a stage, the visitors bounced back to level it within a week. Dravid believes
the same resilience would see his side through in the seventh and final match
at the Lord's on Saturday.
"We got a bit of the rub of the green, but we have shown
a lot of resilience after a long tour," Dravid said after his team edged
out the hosts by two wickets in a thriller at The Oval yesterday.
"It should be a cracker of a game at Lord's," he
said.
Dravid's optimism stems from the fact that the side showed
the same never-say-die spirit in the Test series also.
Staring defeat at the face in the first Test at the Lord's,
India escaped with a draw before swamping the hosts in the second Test in Nottingham.
Though they could not win the third and final Test at The Oval despite dominating
it, India did record its third Test series victory in England.
Dravid said the side never really gave in despite trailing
1-3 in the ODI series.
"We still felt we could win. At 1-3, we knew we'd lost a couple of close
games that could have gone the other way," he said.
And with the opening pair of Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav
Ganguly in red hot form, Dravid has all the more reason to sound confident.
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