LONDON: Former West Indian captain Clive Lloyd on Friday said that he was surprised in India’s 0-4 whitewash in the Test series against England and blamed poor preparation of Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s men as the main reason for the debacle.‘‘Nobody expected England to beat India 4-0 But you can’t come to any country and play just one warm up game,” said Lloyd who, as chairman of ICC Cricket Committee, was here to announce the names of shortlisted players for various awards for the ICC Awards ceremony on September 12.Young players especially need 3-4 four-day games before Tests and couple in between. If you are out of form, you don’t get your form in nets,he said.Lloyd gave the example of Virender Sehwag to drive him his point that without preparation a player howesover big would struggle.‘‘You don’t get runs by walking straight in. I don’t care how good you are, you don’t get it You are not going to run into form in Test matches. You need to get your timing right, the foot movement, picking the ball properly,’’ he said.Lloyd described the current Indian bowling attack, especially the spinners, as the weakest he has seen during his years of association with the game.Spin-wise, it looks the weakest. You always had good spinners. As for fast bowlers, anyone would break down with the sort of workload which (Ishant) Sharma had.Agencies
