Former head coach Ravi Shastri has expressed his disappointment over Team India’s poor display in the second innings of the ongoing Test against England.
Team India will start day 5 of the Edgbaston Test against England firmly on the backfoot after their poor display on the penultimate day of the game. The visitors had thoroughly dominated the first three days of the match before England clawed their way back into the game.
India were well ahead of England when day four started. The tourists were on 125 for 3 with their lead extended to 257. However, nothing much went their way on Monday as they lost their remaining 7 wickets for just 120 runs. Cheteshwar Pujara and first-innings centurion Rishabh Pant scored fifties but failed to convert them into big scores.
England captain Ben Stokes led from the front with the ball, taking the last three wickets to claim 4 for 33, his best figures in almost five years. Buoyed by the solid performance with the ball, England were then off to a stunning start with the bat.
Needing 378 to win the game and draw the series, the home side finished the day on a commanding 259 for 3, needing 119 more on the final day. Openers Alex Lees and Zak Crawley shared a century stand in just 19.5 overs, England’s fastest century stand for the first wicket in Tests.
India fought back with three wickets for two runs either side of tea to reduce the hosts to 109 for 3 from 107 for 0. However, they could not capitalise on those breakthroughs as Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow put England in driver’s seat with an unbroken partnership of 150. Root ended the day on 76 not out and Bairstow was unbeaten on 72.
Ravi Shastri disappointed with India’s performance:
With India on the verge of a disappointing and unexpected loss, Ravi Shastri has criticised the team’s batting efforts in the second innings. While Shastri was not hard on the bowlers, he did not spare the batsmen for their poor show.
Shastri stated that India had the opportunity to bat England out of the game. The former India allrounder slammed the batsmen for their defensive approach before saying that India’s collapse gave England enough time to bat on a good batting track.
“I think (it was) disappointing, to say the least, because they could have batted England out of this contest,” Shastri was quoted as saying by Sky Sports.
“They needed to bat two sessions and I thought they were defensive, they were timid today, especially after lunch.
“Even after they had lost those wickets, they could have taken some chances. Runs were important at that stage of the game and I thought they just went into a shell, lost those wickets too quickly, and gave enough time for England to bat today,” added Shastri who was in charge of India for the first four games of the series last year before stepping down in November.
