Chennai: Gary Kirsten is not losing hope. At close on the third day, the Indian coach said that there was still much cricket left in this Test and India could bounce back.

The following are excerpts

India’s performance

England have played very well to get into the position they are in now. There are still 180 overs left in this Test, so let’s see what we can do.

If the Indians were not well prepared for this Test

Absolutely not… We were very well prepared for this Test.

Andrew Strauss’ batting

He has played exceptionally well in this Test. He is an experienced Test player and he understood the conditions very well… He also studied the bowlers well. We had some plans against him but he understood what he needs to do and played very well.

Where the Indians went wrong

England have played good cricket in this Test. We’ve done everything we set out to do… MS (Dhoni) captained the side really well, specifically today. If you ask me if he could have done anything differently, I will say no. At the end of the day, when you look back, our bowlers have done everything they could have. But we have a team that played better than us today.

The wicket

There is no doubt if you land the ball in certain areas it is going to do something as we have seen... But we have also seen people who can bat if you can spend time at the crease. There aren’t too many balls that make it unpleasant, the bounce and seam are even. There will be a little bit of reverse swing, but that can happen. We are confident that we can bat on here… England have shown it.

Dhoni’s ankle injury…

Ankle and hand everything... (Smiles) He is a tough nut and there is nothing serious.

India’s problem areas

Test matches are battles. We are going to face teams that will play well against us. I don’t think it was the case of ‘we playing any bad Test cricket’. We did not bat as well as we might have liked to. But our bowlers did a good job. Had we put some more runs on the board... Sachin and VVS put on 60 and if it was 120 the story would have been different.

If India would find the going tough in the fourth innings keeping in mind their record

That is a perception we would really like to change. We believe that this team can do anything and we as a team believe we have the players to do some special stuff on the cricket field. We won’t be going there tomorrow thinking that we have lost the game. That’s for sure.