Head coach Rahul Dravid defends Indian batters after poor show against England: ‘It’s not like we’ve been picking players out of nowhere’

Despite having secured a 190-run lead in the first innings, Indian batters were unable to see through a win in the first Test against England in Hyderabad. Chasing 231 in the fourth innings on Day 4, India were halted 28 runs short.

“To be honest, 230 was a pretty challenging score on this wicket in the fourth innings, on a wicket that was turning as much,” India head coach Rahul Dravid said in the post-match press conference.

When asked if the collapse on Day 4 was a recurring issue, with their credentials on turning tracks put to question, Dravid said, “There have been challenging wickets over the last few years which have been difficult to bat on for our young batters. They’ve got a lot of skill and ability. They have come here after scoring a lot of runs in domestic cricket and for India A. It’s not like we’ve been picking players out of nowhere. And sometimes it does take time for people to adjust, and they’re working really hard. There’s a lot of thought going into their batting. For them, it’s about consistently working and getting better at their skills.”

The match in Hyderabad was a first instance of India fielding a playing XI without either of Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane. While it was India’s second innings total which was the lowest of all four innings in the game, Dravid believes the batters fell short in the first innings while the conditions were more conducive to bat.

“I wouldn’t be so harsh to judge the batters for today. If anything, I thought we left probably 70 runs in our first innings when the conditions were pretty good to bat on. We got off to good starts but we didn’t really capitalise. We didn’t get anybody getting a big hundred for us,” Dravid said. “A lot of the guys are quite young, they play a lot of white ball cricket and don’t get a lot of time to get first-class cricket.”

The key differentiator with the bat, Dravid reckons, was Ollie Pope’s innings for England – 196 off 278 – that saw England overturn a first-innings deficit. “Not many teams come and score 420 in the third innings in India and not many batters score 196, so credit goes to them,” said Dravid. “Pope truly played an exceptional innings. It’s one of those games – you talk about it a lot in sports – if someone does well, we’ll shake his hand and congratulate him. For me, that’s important. It feels like I just want to shake his hands and say, really well done. It was the most exceptional innings I’ve ever seen, one of the best exhibition of sweeping and reverse sweeping in these conditions.”

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Spinners will bounce back

While Dravid was all praise for Pope, he furthermore suggested that the Indian spinners – who were aggressively dealt with by the Bazballers – will get better as the series progresses.

“We’ve got to get more disciplined with where we pitch the ball,” said the Indian head coach. “We’ll get better at it as the series goes on. We’ve got world class spinners, it’s not as if they haven’t been challenged before. One of the good things about them is that they’ve always bounced back.”

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