Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], October 31 : Ahead of the Mumbai Test against New Zealand, India head coach Gautam Gambhir spoke about the home series loss after a long gap of 12 years where he said that it is not a good place to be in.
New Zealand are currently leading the three-match series 2-0. The visitors won the first Test at Bengaluru by 8 wickets and won the second match by 113 runs which was played at Pune.
"I never expected a very easy run for me. International cricket is never easy. We lost in SL and lost two Tests, it is not a great place to be in. But all we can do it be honest to ourselves and work hard and prepare ourselves well," Gambhir said in the pre-match press conference.
"It looks like a good wicket. It is difficult to judge how the wicket would play unless teams bat on it. But it looks a decent wicket," the head coach added.
"Did not count how many bowlers, but more the merrier. The idea is to make the bat longer and have quality. If we bat longer, we will be better prepared for Australia. We have that luxury of playing at home, we get so many bowlers to play in the nets. We want to prepare as hard as possible," the 43-year-old concluded.
The third Test is set to begin at Wankhede, Mumbai, on Friday, the same venue where New Zealand spinner Ajaz Patel famously claimed 10 wickets in an innings.
India Squad: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rohit Sharma (C), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant (WK), Sarfaraz Khan, Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar, Ravichandran Ashwin, Akash Deep, Jasprit Bumrah, Axar Patel, Dhruv Jurel, KL Rahul, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj.
New Zealand Squad: Tom Latham (C), Devon Conway, Will Young, Rachin Ravindra, Daryl Mitchell, Tom Blundell (WK), Glenn Phillips, Mitchell Santner, Tim Southee, Ajaz Patel, William O'Rourke, Kane Williamson, Ish Sodhi, Mark Chapman, Jacob Duffy, Matt Henry.