Best chance to beat Australia: Kumble

Indian test team captain Anil Kumble on Thursday said that India has got the best opportunity to win against Australia in four-test match series beginning from October 9 in Bangalore.

Bangalore/Chennai, Oct 2 : Indian test team captain Anil Kumble on Thursday said that India has got the best opportunity to win against Australia in four-test match series beginning from October 9 in Bangalore.

The second game of the four-match series will be held in Mohali on October 17. New Delhi and Nagpur would stage the last two matches.

Kumble while talking to reporters on Thursday in Bangalore said that India has a great opportunity to win this series.

"We will certainly try to take advantage in having... home advantage we will try to do that. And this is probably the best chance to go out there and get a victory. We have come pretty close to that in the last couple of series that we have played against them. So this is the great opportunity for us to get a victory," said Kumble.

He rubbished reports that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and the selectors are forcing senior players into retirement and said all the speculation about senior players entry and exit have been created by media.

"If you go by the record that you have, I don't think the senior players have ever performed badly. The reason we had those results in Australia was thanks to the batsmen getting those runs. It's never been a problem. It's just that, leading up to the series; you (media) have a lot of time to speculate. Maybe that's the reason, which is happening as far as I am concerned I think we have the quality to go out there and get the runs," added Kumble.

Kumble's comments came ahead of the selection of former skipper and batsman Saurav Ganguly for the first two test matches after a lot of speculation due to his poor performance in the last India-Sri Lanka test series.

Ganguly, 36, had been under pressure to keep his place as the elder person of the team's four veteran batting stalwarts, along with Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Vangipurappu Laxman.

Cricket-mad India is fiercely debating whether it is time to quit for their record-breaking batsmen Ganguly, Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman as well as spinner Anil Kumble, the test captain, all well into their 30s.

Ganguly on Thursday arrived in Chennai for India A's second and final four-day match against New Zealand A in Chennai on Friday before joining the team for the Australia test series. By Kestur Vasuki

ANI