The Indian head coach, Rahul Dravid had no shame in accepting the repeated failures of India’s batters in the ‘third’ innings of a Test match, saying it was a concern and they will discuss this with the national selectors and address the issue in near future. Since Dravid took over as the India head coach, the Test squad has suffered thee losses in overseas Tests and all the ocassions they failed to defend a score. India lost defend a humongous score of 378 runs in the recently-concluded Edgbaston Test.
In all these three matches, India failed to defend targets like 240, 212, and now 378. Asked how he plans to analyze, the Indian coach gave a glimpse of his humorous side.
As per the quotes in India Today, Rahul Dravid said, “There is so much of cricket that we aren’t having any time to reflect. In two days, we will be talking to you about something entirely different…But we will certainly try and reflect on this performance. Every match is a lesson for us and you tend to learn something.”
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He further added, “We have to reflect why we aren’t able to bat well in the third innings of a Test match and why we aren’t able to take 10 wickets in the fourth innings.”
Team India is scheduled to play their last six matches of the current World Test Championship cycle in the sub-continent and Dravid plans to discuss the batting woes with the chief selector, Chetan Sharma.
Elaborating the same, Rahul Dravid said, “Now the next six Test matches are in sub-continent (2 in Bangladesh and 4 in India), and our focus will be on those remaining games. That review happens after every game and so when we next travel to SENA land, we are well equipped to deal with it.”
The current team has been consistently losing the grip of a Test during the third and fourth innings and it could be because of a variety of factors, including bowlers’ fitness over a passage of time.
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Roughly pointing the reasons for the losses, Rahul Dravid said, “Could be a variety of factors — may be we need to maintain that intensity and maybe we need to maintain that level of fitness, maintain that level of performance right through a Test match. So both in SA and here, we have started well but haven’t been able to finish well. Certainly, we need to get better at that and improve.”
