towards the end of 1999, the indian team was in flux. although they had performed well in the 1999 world cup, the winter was marked by a disastrous tour to australia which exposed the indian team's weaknesses when playing abroad, marked with a loss of form of most of the batsmen, except tendulkar and the newly emerged vvs laxman. after tendulkar quit captaincy and azharuddin was banned for match-fixing, sourav ganguly took over as captain, and the new zealander john wright became coach.