Only Kiwis on my minds, says skipper Gambhir

Stand-in skipper Gambhir says he's not thinking about South Africa Tour or World Cup ahead of third ODI against Kiwis

Sure, a bunch of star players from either side are missing the excitement in the city and most of the team management's focus is channelised towards the tour of South Africa and the 2011 World Cup. However, these aspects are in no way influencing India's stand-in skipper, Gautam Gambhir, who put his foot down with some strong words while addressing the media here yesterday.


Indian skipper Gautam Gambhir smiles during a training session ahead
of the third ODI against New Zealand in Vadodara yesterday. Pic/AFP

On my mind
"I don't care about the tour of South Africa, or the World Cup. I am just thinking about tomorrow's (Saturday) one-day international. That is the only thing on my mind," a teed off Gambhir said."My focus is on the series at hand. I have been given a responsibility to captain the team and only after completing it, I will think about South Africa tour.

"I'll fully utilise the time I will get after reaching there to acclimatise to the condition," he said when asked if he was worried about reaching South Africa just few days before the first Test at Centurion that gets underway on December 16.

Most of Gambhir's senior teammates will be flying to South Africa next week. Sources within the team told this correspondent that coach Gary Kirsten was highly impressed by Gambhir's captaincy skills during the first two games, which India won by 40 runs, and eight wickets, respectively.

Meanwhile, New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori praised Gambhir's captaincy and conceded that it was a tough task for his bowlers to remove India's top-order batting in the first two games.

"Gambhir has led India superbly, and has led the charge from the front. There is great aggression in his game. We can start to focus on India's lower-order batting only if we get through their top-order.u00a0 That is our biggest worry.

We have to go into the game believing we can make a strong comeback," said Vettori Vettori said his team wants to win the match and keep the series alive. "We are really desperate to win this match. We have to improve on a lot of things. India are playing exceptionally well. They are one of the form teams in the world," he said.