India head coach Rahul Dravid credited Ollie Pope, who hit an impressive (196, 278b, 21×4) as England beat India by 28 runs to win the primary Take a look at on the Rajiv Gandhi Worldwide Stadium on Sunday.
Dravid opined that Pope’s innings was the turning level within the sport as India was bowled out for 202 in 64.3 overs in a chase of 231 runs.
“To be sincere, 230 was a fairly difficult rating on this wicket within the fourth innings, and it’s all the time going to be difficult in India. 230 runs on a fourth-day wicket, which was turning… We shouldn’t have been chasing 230, however Ollie Pope got here out, and performed a incredible innings. He performed lots of high-risk pictures and executed them beautifully. 196 on that wicket the place no one else received a 50 of their aspect made the distinction within the sport,” Dravid mentioned on the post-match press convention.
Pope employed the sweep, and most notably the reverse sweep, to perfection, which pressured the Indian spinners to change their lengths. The high-risk shot did pay wealthy dividends as Pope motored on to present England hope and the lead. England rode on his heroics with the bat, after which Tom Hartley picked a seven-wicket haul to humble India.
Dravid was impressed with the Englishman’s shot choice and mentioned: “I actually didn’t see somebody do it that persistently and efficiently. Particularly the reverse sweep; to play it for that lengthy and efficiently, hats off to him.”
READ | IND vs ENG, 1st Take a look at report
In a stiff chase, India wanted its younger batters like Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, and Shreyas Iyer to counter England spinners and play a match-winning innings. Nevertheless, not one of the batters had been in a position to negotiate the spinners, with Gill falling for a two-ball duck.
Dravid, nevertheless, backed the children and mentioned that they might come good because the collection progressed.
“I gained’t be so harsh to evaluate them at present, and in reality, I believe we left 70 runs on the board within the first innings. When the situations had been fairly good to bat on Day two, we received ourselves to good begins however didn’t capitalise. We didn’t have somebody getting 100 for us. The second innings is all the time going to be difficult… We received shut, and now we have to get higher. A whole lot of our gamers are younger, and these guys play lots of white-ball cricket, and so they don’t get lots of time to play first-class cricket. They’re studying,” he mentioned.
“It wasn’t a flat wicket by any stretch of creativeness, and it turned by the course of the sport. It was a difficult wicket, and it’s been a problem for a few of our younger batters to adapt, however they’re working onerous, and so they have the ability and talent. They’ve come right here by scoring lots of runs in home cricket and doing effectively in A-team cricket, and they’re picked of advantage. It isn’t that we’re selecting individuals out of nowhere, and generally it takes a little bit of time for individuals to regulate,” he added.
The pinnacle coach mentioned that the Indian spin trio of R. Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, and Axar Patel can be extra disciplined and can work on which lengths to bowl because the collection progresses.
“We simply need to get extra disciplined as to the place to pitch the ball, and we are going to work on it. We are going to get higher at it, and now we have some world-class spinners. One of many good issues about our spinners is that they’ve all the time bounced again. If we get our execution proper within the subsequent Take a look at match, he (Pope) will make a mistake,” he mentioned.