Despite securing a 190-run lead in the first innings, the Indian batsmen could not see out victory in the first Test against England in Hyderabad. Chasing 231 in the fourth innings on Day 4, India stopped for 28 runs.
“To be honest, 230 was quite a difficult score on that wicket in the fourth innings, on a wicket that was spinning so much,” India captain Rahul Dravid said at the post-match press conference.
When asked if the collapse on Day 4 was a recurring issue, with their credentials on the turning tracks in doubt, Dravid said: “There have been challenging wickets in the last few years which have been difficult for our young batters to contend with. They have many skills and abilities. They came here after scoring a lot of runs in domestic cricket and for India A. It is not like we are picking players out of nowhere. And sometimes it takes time for people to adjust and they work very hard. There is a lot of thought that goes into hitting them. For them, it’s about working consistently and improving their skills.”
The match in Hyderabad was the first time India played a line-up without any of Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane. While it was India’s second innings total that was the lowest of the four innings of the game, Dravid believes that the batters fell short in the first innings when the conditions were more favorable for the bat.
“I wouldn’t be so harsh in judging the fighters for today. If anything, I thought we probably gave away 70 runs in our first innings when the conditions were too good to bat. We started well but didn’t really capitalize. We didn’t get anyone to get a hundred for us,” Dravid said. “A lot of the lads are quite young, they’ve been playing a lot of white-ball cricket and they haven’t had a lot of time to get first-class cricket.”
The key difference with the bat, Dravid believes, was Ollie Pope’s innings for England – 196 off 278 – which saw England overturn the 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,” Dravid said. “Pope really played an outstanding game. It’s one of those games – you talk about it a lot in sports – if someone does well, we’ll shake their hand and congratulate them. For me, this is important. I feel like I just want to shake his hands and say, well done. It was the most outstanding innings I have ever seen, one of the best sweep and reverse sweeps in these conditions.”
The spinners will be back
While Dravid was all praise for Pope, he further suggested that the Indian spinners – who the bowlers have faced aggressively – will get better as the series progresses.
“We have to be more disciplined with where we put the ball,” said the Indian coach. “We’ll get better at it as the series goes on. We have world-class spinners, it’s not like they haven’t been challenged before. One of the good things about them is that they always bounce back.”