'You have to think positive and play positively only then you will get a positive result.'
Former India head coach Ravi Shastri on Wednesday, November 6, launched Sandeep Patil - Beyond Boundaries, the flamboyant batter's memoir written in conjunction with the well-known cricket writer Clayton Murzello, at the Cricket Club of India in Mumbai.
Present at the event were Patil's Mumbai and India team-mates Sunil Gavaskar, Dilip Vengsarkar, Balwinder Sandhu and Sanjay Manjrekar as well as former India coach John Wright.
Discussion at the event pivoted to India's whitewash in the New Zealand series earlier this week. "We lost the series because our batting didn't do well," Patil said. "I will not use the words we failed because it is negative."
"We will definitely come back," Patil assured the gathering on the outcome in the Border Gavaskar Trophy series in Australia.
"We won the World Cup a couple of months ago and we have such great players in our team. We will definitely bounce back in Australia," Patil said.
Indian cricket lovers of another generation will recall Patil's brilliant 174 against Australia in the second Test at Adelaide in January 1981, thumping the mighty Dennis Lillee for boundaries.
In the first Test, struck by a Len Pascoe bouncer when batting on 65, he was taken to hospital where he spent the rest of the day. His courage and brilliance on that tour is spoken of whenever an Indian team tours Australia.
"They have to play against Australia in Australia, they will have to forget what happened there last time. They will also have to forget what happened in this series (against New Zealand) and look forward," Patil said.
"We lost all practice games before winning the World Cup, so they should remember... you have to think positive and play positively only then you will get a positive result," he said.
"If you play defensive cricket and think of winning, it is not going to happen," he added.
The series whitewash to New Zealand is a wake-up call for Indian cricket, Patil said.
"This (series loss) was like a wake-up call. It's not like our team has been playing badly. A few months back they won the T20 World Cup. There are some big players in our team, surely they will bounce back," he said.
"They must have learnt so many things from this loss."
