'Batting lower down denied me several hundreds'

NEW DELHI: Batting lower down the order has denied him several centuries, says former India captain Sourav Ganguly, who feels VVS Laxman too has "suffered" in terms of scoring hundreds because of batting at number six.
   
"I have batted lower down the order for a lot of time and Rahul (Dravid) used to bat at number three and Sachin (Tendulkar) came at four. As a result, I had to bat at five or sometimes six and I missed quite a few hundreds because we did not have wicketkeeper-batsmen like Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Dinesh Kaarthick earlier," Ganguly told.
   
"These guys support people batting at five or six. But me and (VVS) Laxman suffered in terms of getting hundreds," he added.

The left-hander, who scored his maiden double hundred in the Bangalore Test and was the top run-getter in the series against Pakistan, said going up the order helped his batting in the just-concluded series.
   
"I got to bat at number four in this series and it helped me," he said.
   
Ganguly felt his self-belief contributed to his fine performance in the recent series, for which he was adjudged player of the series.
   
"I had a good year before this series in both forms of the game. So the confidence was high. When I got a hundred in Bangalore, I was determined to convert it into a double," he said.