Leeds: India captain Shubman Gill admitted the lower-order collapse in both innings did cost them dearly during the five-wicket defeat against England in the opening Test here on Tuesday.
Despite vice-captain Rishabh Pant scoring centuries in each innings of the opening Tests and other key batters in openers KL Rahul, Yashasvi Jaiswal, and Gill himself hitting their respective tons, India failed to get to bigger totals in both innings and also dropped crucial catches. This is the first time in the history of Indian cricket that a team lost a Test after five individual hundreds being scored by its batters.
India collapsed from 430/3 in the first innings to 471, losing seven wickets for 41 runs, and in the second, they crumbled to 364 all-out from 333 for 4, losing six wickets for 31 runs.
“It was a brilliant Test match. We had our chances, we dropped catches and our lower-order didn’t contribute enough, but proud of the team and overall a good effort. Yesterday, we were thinking around 430 odd and declared, but we lost six wickets for 25 runs (31),” Gill said during the post-match presentation ceremony.
“Unfortunately, we didn’t score runs at the end, which always makes it difficult. (It) just didn’t go our way in this match.” “That (lower-order contribution) was something we spoke about. (But) It (collapse happened so quickly. (It) could be one of those things we have to rectify in the upcoming matches,” he said.
Gill defended his side, saying it is a “young team” after a string of dropped catches in the match. Jaiswal alone dropped four catches.
“Chances don’t come easy on wickets like these. It’s a young team (a) learning one,and hopefully we will be able to improve on those aspects,” he said.
“(In) the first session, we were quite spot on, didn’t give away many runs. It’s hard to stop the runs once the ball softens. Unfortunately, some edges didn’t go our way. They took their chances after the ball got old. That happens in a game of cricket. You expect that everything won’t go your way,” he said while talking about the final day’s play in which England chased 371 to win.
Gill confirmed there is a long break for the second Test — starting in Birmingham on July 2 — and the team will take a call on Jasprit Bumrah before the game.
“It’s definitely more game by game. Once we are close to the match we will see,” he said on Bumrah’s availability.
England captain Ben Stokes praised India for an impressive start to the Test especially on the first day, but also lauded openers Ben Duckett (149) and Zak Crawley (65) who set up their win on the last day.
“The opposition is allowed to play well, thought they played very well in that first session,” he said.
“The pressure of a fourth innings and going out there is tough, especially in England. That partnership between Zak (Crawley) and Ben (Duckett) was incredible to get us going. To get that down to set us off in a run chase was incredible,” he added.
“There’s a lot of skill that has contributed to winning this Test match, but also the attitude we showed was incredible. We were on the field for long periods in this game, though we turned up with the attitude that we could break this game open at any time.” England opener Duckett said they needed to find a way against Jasprit Bumrah, who had taken a five-for in the first innings.
“He’s (Bumrah) a world-class bowler, he’s very very clear, he was superb in the first innings. To limit his damage was superb for us, individuals went about it differently but it was very important for us,” he said.
Talking about his game plan of using switch-hits frequently against Ravindra Jadeja, Duckett said, “It felt really difficult with a straight bat (playing against Jadeja), it was spinning out of the rough, it’s a shot I play a lot, went through different versions to first get to the other end and then get boundaries.”
