After India’s seven-wicket defeat against England in the rescheduled fifth Test at Edgbaston on Tuesday, India head coach Rahul Dravid acknowledged the areas of concern in India’s Test squad that have potentially plagued them in their three overseas losses in Tests – first in South Africa and most recently in Birmingham.
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According the former India captain, the most recent loss can be attributed to their issues with levels of intensity, fitness and performance that saw them draw the series 2-2 with England after having a lead.
Speaking in the post-match press conference, Dravid said, “It’s been disappointing for us. I mean we had a couple of opportunities in South Africa as well and here as well. I just think it’s something we need to look at, something we need to probably work on. We have been very good at that over the last few years, in terms of taking wickets and winning those Test matches.
“But, yeah, we haven’t been able to do that over the last few months. It could be a variety of factors: it could be maybe we just need to maintain that intensity, maintain that level of fitness, or maintain that level of performance right through a Test match.”
While India dominated the match against England for three days, they ended up with an underwhelming performance from the lower middle order in the second innings that saw seven wickets fall for 92 runs. Eventually, they set a target of 378, a score that the hosts ended up chasing with relative ease.
“In the second innings, we have not batted as well. If you look at all the third innings of these two Test matches overseas (Cape Town and Johannesburg) and this one, the batting has also probably not been up to scratch. In both areas, we have sort of started the Test matches well but we haven’t been able to finish well and yeah we need to get better at that and certainly need to improve,” said Dravid.
England achieved their highest-ever total in the fourth innings to win a Test, and they did it with more than two sessions to spare. While hile the 269-run partnership between Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow can be credited for it, India’s hapless bowling also did not make things easy for them.
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Dravid also defended India’s strategy to leave out R Ashwin and go in with just Ravindra Jadeja saying, “In hindsight, you can always look at things and look at the combination of your team. Shardul has done a good job for us in these games.”
He added: “It is always not easy to leave someone like Ash out in a Test match. But having said that, when we looked at the wicket on the first day, it had a pretty good even covering of grass. We felt that there was enough in it for the fast bowlers.
“And even going into the last day the wicket hasn’t really spun - whether it’s for Jack Leach, whether it’s for Ravindra Jadeja who bowled through the Test match. If anything, because maybe the weather played a part over the first days, and there weren’t long phases of sun, the wicket didn’t break up as much as we expected it to, or didn’t spin as much as we expected it to. It’s easy to look back on the fifth day and say it would have been nice to have a second spinner in the fourth innings, but again it didn’t really turn to justify that.”
One of the most used words during the recently concluded Test was ‘Bazball’ – a word referencing England coach Brendon McCullum’s nickname and his all-out aggressive approach that has been fetching the team success of late.
Dravid spoke about the term, saying, “I don’t know what it is. The cricket they played for four Tests, chasing like this in fourth innings doesn’t happen often in this country but the brand of cricket you play depends on players and their form. You can play positive (cricket) when you have form players.”
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