Faisalabad experience is not a handicap: Rahul Dravid.

Faisalabad, Jan 20 : The Indian team not having played before at the Iqbal Stadium here will not be a detriment when the second Test against Pakistan begins there Saturday, captain Rahul Dravid said Friday.

Only Sachin Tendulkar in the 16-member Indian squad — besides team coach Greg Chappell — has played here before, a fact that would give a slight edge to Pakistan. Since 1989, the debut series of Tendulkar, India has not played a Test or a one-day international here.

Dravid, who scored an unbeaten 128 in the drawn first Test that ended in Lahore Tuesday, said he had looked at the statistics of the 23 previous Test matches played at the Iqbal Stadium to get an idea of how the pitch had behaved.

“We have looked at the numbers. Statistics give you some indication as to how the pitch would behave,” he said at the pre-match press conference.

Dravid, however, hastened to add that he was not a great believer in statistics, so he would not give too much importance to them.

“I don’t believe in numbers. And you cannot base your judgement on numbers alone as pitches behave differently in different months,” he averred.

Dravid said the pitch at the Iqbal Stadium looked slightly better than the one at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore, where the match ended in a drab draw with rains and poor visibility making significant contributions.

“There is some difference in the pitch. Hopefully, the bowlers would get some assistance from it,” he said.

Asked whether he had decided the XI for the Test, Dravid said he had a few options but declined to disclose the team.

On whether he would again open the innings after Lahore, he said it was only one of the options.

“(My) success has given us a few options for the short term,” he said, adding that he would review the option on an “ongoing basis” in the series.

India made the two specialist openers, Wasim Jaffer and Gautam Gambhir, sit on the bench while Dravid partnered vice-captain Virender Sehwag as an opener, apparently to accommodate Sourav Ganguly in the XI.

But Dravid’s decision to partner Sehwag paid rich dividends as they raised 410 runs for the opening wicket, and fell just four short of the 50-year-old world record held by Vinoo Mankad and Pankaj Roy.

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