Dambulla: India might be in woeful form right now but New Zealand captain Ross Taylor says the recent poor run would make Mahendra Singh Dhoni's men all the more dangerous when the two sides clash in a do-or-die encounter of the ODI cricket tri-series here on Wednesday.
"I think it almost makes them dangerous, they didn't play that well against us in the first game, and then they came back and played well against Sri Lanka, obviously they didn't play as well as they would have liked to play against Sri Lanka in the last match, that makes them dangerous," Taylor said in the pre-match press conference.
"I would not read too much on the Indian side. They are a good batting unit. They have played a lot of cricket. I am sure with their experience they will come firmer and we just need to put pressure on them," he added.
India have been handed a couple of embarrassing defeats in the ongoing tri-series and would be out if they lose tomorrow. Dhoni's men lost by 200 runs to New Zealand in the lung-opener before being reduced to 103 and then thrashed by eight wickets by Sri Lanka.
But Taylor said every side goes through such phases and New Zealand cannot afford to take the Indians lightly.
"Obviously they didn't play that well against us in the first game and then they came back and played very well against Sri Lanka. Obviously they did not play as well as they would have liked against Sri Lanka in the last match. I think we cannot really think about that too much and just got to work ourselves," he said.
"I think a lot of the batsmen in their side probably have not scored as many runs as they would have liked. But they have scored runs in the past or in the warm up game. So it is not all doom and gloom for them," he added.
On whether India's pathetic batting form would work to New Zealand's advantage tomorrow, Taylor said Dhoni and Co are not the only ones struggling in the seaming conditions here.
"I think every top order has struggled not just India. We (also) struggled at the top and Sri Lanka had their troubles as well. It has done lot of things. I guess their batting is under pressure but I would say even we were under a bit of pressure," he explained. PTI
