Cricket: Wright backs Ganguly, Tendulkar to lead fightback

4.30pm

John Wright backs his under-fire cricket captain Sourav Ganguly and is looking to him and the now fit Sachin Tendulkar to fire India out of their worst slump in years.

Indian coach Wright said today that Tendulkar, after a series of false starts, would return from an ankle sprain for the fifth one-day international against New Zealand at Wellington's Westpac Stadium on Wednesday -- his first appearance in the series.

He also firmly denied any suggestion of replacing Ganguly as captain for the final three matches in the series as the gifted left-hander struggles for any kind of form on tour, with his team trailing 0-4.

Ganguly scored 29 runs from four innings in the test series then 14, nought, four and two in the one-dayers.

His latest innings here yesterday ended after 13 balls when he weakly cut Daryl Tuffey high to Kyle Mills at third man.

"It's a difficult time for a captain when things aren't working for you. I think you'll find he'll be opening the batting in Wellington, back leading from the front," Wright said.

"Sourav will be fine. Being the captain of India is a tough job and we're all under pressure. We haven't had a run like this before.

"It's up to the coach and the captain to supply some leadership, and the players have to go out there and fight. That's one of the things which has helped us in the past year.

"With the return of Tendulkar that will clearly help. We can turn things around in the next few days."

Tendulkar -- whose telephone number one-day figures read 300 matches, 11,544 runs, 44.22 average, 33 centuries -- has been given nearly a fortnight to recover from the Christmas Eve injury when he turned the ankle while bowling.

Wright said no one was taking the results as hard as himself, with the former New Zealand captain keen to impress on his return home.

"Coaching's a great job when things go well, but when it doesn't it presents the greatest challenge. It is your home country and we all wanted to have a good tour, particularly myself.

"But I'm not particularly worried what people think of me. I worry about the players, try to turn things around and do the best job I can.

"The guys are trying really hard, there's always a lot of pressure on and criticism back in India.

"They're pretty low in confidence because they're touch players and they haven't come to terms with conditions they've been faced with."

Ganguly glumly told yesterday's post-match press conference he hadn't experienced such a low feeling in his time in charge.

"It's been the worst since I've taken over as captain, and I've been captain for three years now.

"It's up to all 17 of us to pull ourselves out of the position we are in.

"We're letting everybody down, we're letting our coach, our physio and our trainer down, we're letting our people back home down, and all those who have come to watch."

- NZPA