Following the disappointing loss at the hands of England in the first Test of the series in Hyderabad, Team India head coach Rahul Dravid stressed for the batters – youngsters, in particular – to improve on their techniques to adapt to the changing surface conditions in the subcontinent.
“I wouldn’t be so harsh to judge them. But it was a challenging wicket, and it’s been a bit of a challenge for some of our young batsman to adapt. But you know, they’ve got the skill,” Dravid said in his post-match press meet.
However, the batting legend expressed satisfaction about the way junior batters have been progressing. “They’ve come here by scoring a lot of runs in domestic cricket. They are being picked on merit. Sometimes it does take time for people to adjust. They’re working really hard and there’s a lot of thought going into their batting,” the coach said without taking names.
India were bowled out for 420 in their first dig, and the Bengaluru man felt that they were probably 70-80 runs short. “I thought we left probably 70 runs on the board in the first innings. Conditions were good to bat on day two and got some good starts but we didn’t really capitalise. We didn’t get a 100, you know, a really big hundred. The second innings is always going to be challenging,” Rahul Dravid elaborated.
