'The Indians can be beaten in the mind'

Faisal Shariff

It is quarter past eight and I am having dinner with New Zealand coach Denis Aberhart at an Italian restaurant.

In less than 48 hours from now the Indian team will take on the New Zealanders in their last Super Six encounter. Having already booked a seat in the semi-final India will look to avenge its 5-2 defeat in New Zealand last winter.

Aberhart is perhaps the most low-profile coach in international cricket, but ask the Australians and Indians and they will agree he is amongst the finest cricketing brains around.

With Kiwi skipper Stephen Fleming Aberhart plotted the Australians' downfall  in a one-day tournament last year.

"We identified Steve and Mark Waugh as the weak link of the Australian one-day team, attacked them and threw them out of the tournament," he says.

They say stay close to your friends but stay closer to your enemies.

So here I am dining with the man who plotted India's worst overseas tour in a decade. And before I could unravel the man with my sack of questions he turns around and asks me, "Who do you reckon can beat Australia at Port Elizabeth? Sri Lanka or us?"

I remind him he has to beat India before he can get there, but Aberhart is a man who always thinks ahead.

"No one has got closer to beating the Aussies than us. I believe we can beat them given another game."

The ignominy of defeat chasing 208 against the Aussies on Tuesday has not left the Kiwi camp.

"We had it all planned till the batting let us down. But given another chance we know we can put it across them."

I remind him the Kiwis will need to reckon with Sachin Tendulkar in less than two days.

"Do you see any chinks in his armour?" I ask.

He reminds me that Tendulkar averaged one in the one-day series against New Zealand, that the Kiwis discovered his Achilles' heel and would like to exploit that weakness again.

"But having said that, he is easily the most complete batsman I have ever seen," he says.

He reckons it is important to catch Sachin at the crease early or else he proves too costly a batsman to bowl to.

"Look at the way Glenn McGrath gets him. Keeps pitching it short and pushing him back and then pitch one up and full."   

Aberhart thrives on the challenge of playing the Indians on the good wickets here though he defends the wickets back home when the Indians toured New Zealand. 

"They weren't bad wickets. If the Indians are complaining about the wickets then they should explain how we got runs on the same wickets. We out-batted them."

He said the Kiwis had the Indians under pressure throughout the tour and mainly targeted their skipper Sourav Ganguly.

At one stage they were so confident they would have friendly bets about where Ganguly would be caught.

"The Indians can be beaten in the mind. You can't match them on ability but you can defeat them in the head. We don't need New Zealand-type wickets, just wickets with bounce. We are sure we can make a good game."

"Add to that we have one of the finest captains in world cricket and he has a lot of tricks for the opposition."

The Kiwis training sessions are an eye-opener. According to Aberhart each time a batsman goes into bat he is given a match situation and asked to bat accordingly.

For example it could be the 44th over of the innings and the batsman is supposed to score 54 runs with 36 balls to go. In front of him is placed a huge white board with the field placements. He has to run between the wickets and score his runs.

"It is important to get the batsman to experience match conditions and feel the pressure as he bats. To make the game more realistic we get an international umpire to stand in and give decisions. It is the way to go where international umpired are asked to stand in and get their eye in before an important game besides helping the batsmen to take the net session seriously."

Finally, how do you defeat the Aussies?

Aberhart explains the last time New Zealand toured Australia the game plan was to leave McGrath alone. "None of his balls ever go onto hit the stumps so it is easy to leave him alone."

"If you don't give early wickets to McGrath and take 30 runs off his 10 overs it will be a job well done. Because the other two bowlers Andy Bichel and Brett Lee are good, but give a lot of loose balls. After that the Aussies struggle with their fourth and fifth bowler. Brad Hogg can be smashed and the fifth bowler option can be milked for runs."

"They like to make you feel sorry for being there. I remember McGrath saying during the series against us that we should send these pretenders away and bring on the real rivals, the South Africans."

"It is important to concentrate for all 100 overs against them. They wait for the opposition to relax and then dominate the game from thereon. You never ever blink in the game against them. Stand up to them. They just need a small time period to get back into the game or take over the proceedings so always concentrate on the game."

"Don't ever forget that they can be beaten too."

As we leave the restaurant Aberhart reveals his team's biggest chink is that they bat down to number 10 in the side and that makes the batsmen above think there is someone to follow and do the job.