Team India lost to England in the first Test of the five-match Test series as well. England completed a 371-run chase on the fifth and final day. However, it was India’s seventh defeat in their last nine Tests as well. Notably, India scored 835 runs in the game, including five individual centuries, where Rishabh Pant scored two centuries in two innings.
However, India lost 7 for 41 in the first innings and 6 for 31 in the second as well. But, Head Coach Gautam Gambhir backed his side as well. Shubman Gill, who started his captaincy tenure with a sparkling first-innings century, later said that India had aimed for a target “around 435.”
“Look, first of all, it’s not that they weren’t applying themselves. Sometimes people fail. And that’s okay,” Gambhir said. “I know it’s disappointing. And more importantly, I think they were more disappointed than anyone, because they knew we had the opportunity. It’s not like they’re not working hard in the nets. These things happen. Even proper batters fail. Hopefully they’ll learn, and hopefully we’ll get better performances from our tail. And that is not the only reason we lost the Test match.”
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Gautam Gambhir, however, refused to hide behind the ‘young team’ narrative for the defeat as well.
“Every defeat is bad. It’s not about a young team or an experienced team. It’s an Indian team. We take pride in winning each and every game for our country. A young team is not an excuse. We represent 140 crore proud Indians. We will try and give our absolute best. There are no excuses. We will turn up every Test match thinking that we can win the test match and win the series,” he said.
Meanwhile, the head coach Gautam Gambhir also confirmed that speedster Jasprit Bumrah would play only two more Test matches to manage his workload. But a decision on which matches would be taken later on.
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“No, we won’t change the plans. I think for us to manage his workload is more important because there’s a lot of cricket going forward and we know what he brings on the table as well. Before he came on the show, it was already decided that he’s going to play three Test matches,” he shared.
“But let’s see how his body turns out. We haven’t decided which two other Test matches he’s going to play. [Even without Bumrah] we absolutely have the bowling attack [to compete]. We believe in them. We trust in them. When we pick the squad, we pick the squad on trust, not on hope. As I just mentioned, those are inexperienced bowlers but they will keep getting better. We saw in this Test match as well that for the first four days, even on day five, we were in a position where we could have won the Test match. We believe and we trust that these boys will deliver for us,” Gautam Gambhir concluded.
