Be proud of India's record: Duncan Fletcher

Melbourne, Jan 17: His team may have just four members from the 2011 World Cup-winning side but Indian head coach Duncan Fletcher yesterday insisted the Mahendra Singh Dhoni-captained team has the experience of playing in big tournaments.

India excluded veterans Yuvraj Singh, Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh, Gautam Gambhir and Zaheer Khan from their World Cup 2015 squad, relying on a fresh-looking squad to retain the title won at home in 2011.

“This is a very important point. We do want experience. Now, we have played three ICC tournaments in the last three years — the ICC World T20, 2012 and 2014, and the Champions Trophy 2013. And people will be surprised to see that we have only lost two games in all,” Fletcher was quoted as saying by bcci.tv.

“That is quite a record to be proud of. And the team in all those tournaments was more or less the same. So, these boys do have the experience when it comes to the big tournaments and they do know how to win them,” he said.

‘We can win World Cup’

“What makes this team special is that over the last few years they have faced all kinds of situations in limited overs cricket and have shown they are capable of coming out successfully from all of them.

“That’s why I say that we have a good chance to win this World Cup.” Playing in Australia just prior to the mega event would give the reigning champions some much-needed time to acclimatise to the conditions. “Playing the tri-series just before the World Cup is a great idea for us in getting used to how the white ball behaves here,” he said.

Fletcher meanwhile has defended the Indian bowlers, saying that the thrashing they got from the Australia during the four-match Test series was due to inexperience of some of them. “I agree that there is a lot of work to do with the bowlers and they must realise their responsibilities at the Test level. But I also think the Indian pacers get a lot of unwarranted flak,” Fletcher said.

“For these bowlers it’s just a matter of gaining experience of bowling in these conditions,” he added.