Forget the past, Vettori tells team

Have to lift every aspect of game

Down 0-2 going into Friday’s game following the 0-4 drubbing in Bangladesh, Vettori conceded his team needed to get a lot of things right.

“You take each game as in isolation,” noted Vettori when asked how he would lift his team from this position. “That way, you can prepare the right way, otherwise you can often get caught in previous losses. We really intend to win this game, but we know there are a lot of things to improve upon to beat India, who are playing exceptionally well. They are one of the form teams and we have to lift every aspect of our game.”

One of their key batsmen, Brendon McCullum, who missed the first two matches due to back spasms, showed great improvement, going through his training session with a great degree of comfort.

“He seems to have come through his training pretty well. He is doing some keeping now and as soon as we come to know about his keeping, we will make a decision. He is improving all the time and hopefully he can play tomorrow,” he remarked.

Vettori said he wasn’t averse to playing McCullum only as a batsman. “It’s definitely something that we will look at,” he stated, driving home just how important the diminutive batsman is to their scheme of things.

“Balancing the team is always difficult when Brendon offers so much with his keeping and opening the innings. We may even look at him batting down the order depending on his fitness so that his workload is not that high. But in future, we want him to both keep and open the batting,” he explained.

The New Zealand bowlers have struggled to trouble India’s top-order batsmen. “You need to get to lower order first,” he pointed out when asked if he was looking at exploiting the inexperienced Indian middle-order. “It’s important for us to get early wickets. We showed it in the first game that we can dismiss their lower order, but in a one-day game, the top-order is the key. You got to be more vigilant, you got to bowl to your plans. The last match we couldn’t do that and Gambhir played so well, he took the game away from us.”