Loss to India in Natwest final gave me lot of sleepless nights, reveals Nasser Hussain
Nasser Hussain has admitted that the pain of losing to India in the 2002 Natwest final was difficult to fathom and he believes it was a game that England should have won. Hussain has further stated that after getting rid of India’s top five, it was a game for them to lose but they messed up.
The 2002 Natwest final was, in many ways, the renaissance moment of Indian cricket, with a bunch of confident individuals, under the stoic leadership of Sourav Ganguly, achieved something spectacular. That India could win that game without much contribution from some of their top stars made it a worthwhile win, with Yuvraj Singh and Mohammed Kaif helping them to the post. Nasser Hussain, the English skipper for that game, who scored his first and last ODI century, is still deflated for the amount of frustration he had for that game for he believes it was a game that they shouldn’t have lost.
"My career was about just being the best I could be or, when I was captain, making England the best they could be. But there are two games I do have regrets about: the 2002 NatWest Final against India and also the 2003 World Cup game against Australia in Port Elizabeth,” Hussain told Ian Ward on the latest The One That Got Away podcast.
"We were all over Australia but we ended up losing a game we should've won. That sums up both of those games and why I do have sleepless nights. 'Could I have done anything different? Could we have done anything different?' They are both games we lost that we should've won."
Ganguly was at the top of his game, scoring a 35-ball fifty while bringing up a century opening stand in just 13.1 overs alongside Virender Sehwag, the others fell rather cheaply. The dismissals of Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman in the subsequent overs made things murky for India in a 325-run chase but Yuvraj Singh and Mohammed Kaif played two incredible innings that day to guide India’s charge.
"In those days, that was a seriously good score! But we knew it was a very flat pitch and they had this Fab Five. We got wickets at regular intervals and got them 146-5. You ask me now what I still think about on the treadmill; I've got India in a final 146-5, chasing 326 - we've got Ganguly, Sehwag, Dravid, and Tendulkar out - that's when you're thinking what could I have done differently?
“Looking back, I guess some of our team might have done. Not in the fact they did anything different or that I actually saw someone, but it must be a natural reaction. Ganguly, himself, admitted he thought the game was gone. They had two young lads coming in, in Yuvraj Singh and Mohammed Kaif who hadn't yet done a lot for them."
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