ENG vs IND: “It’s been disappointing for us,” says Dravid missed opportunities

After India was defeated by England’s fourth-innings heroics, Rahul Dravid has put pressure on the team to improve their ability to close out games.

In recent Test losses to England and South Africa, India failed to make the most of their advantages, a trend Dravid wants to address.

“It’s been disappointing for us,” Dravid said. “We had a couple of opportunities in South Africa as well and here, I just think it’s something we need to look at, something we need to probably work on.

“We have been very good at that over the last few years, in terms of taking wickets and winning those Test matches. But we haven’t been able to do that over the last few months.

“It could be a variety of factors: it could be maybe we just need to maintain that intensity, maintain that level of fitness, or maintain that level of performance right through a Test match.”

India’s collapse from 190/4 to 245 let England win despite a 132-run first-inning lead.

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Dravid said his team starts matches well but loses steam, as was the case against England at Edgbaston.

“In the second innings, we have not batted as well,” Dravid said.

“If you look at all the third innings of these two Test matches overseas and this one, the batting has also probably not been up to scratch.

“In both areas, we have sort of started the Test matches well but we haven’t been able to finish well. We need to get better at that and certainly need to improve.”

The absence of Ravichandran Ashwin raised concerns given India’s recent troubles with fourth-inning wickets.

“In hindsight, you can always look at things and look at the combination of your team. Shardul has done a good job for us in these games,” Dravid said.

“It is always not easy to leave someone like Ash out in a Test match. But having said that, when we looked at the wicket on the first day, it had a pretty good even covering of grass. We felt that there was enough in it for the fast bowlers.

“Even going into the last day the wicket hasn’t really spun – whether it’s for Jack Leach, whether it’s for Ravindra Jadeja who bowled through the Test match. If anything, because maybe the weather played a part over the first days, and there weren’t long phases of sun, the wicket didn’t break up as much as we expected it to, or didn’t spin as much as we expected it to.

“It’s easy to look back on the fifth day and say it would have been nice to have a second spinner in the fourth innings, but again it didn’t really turn to justify that.”

Brendon McCullum’s impression on the England team has been huge after their 3-0 series win against New Zealand and four successive chases of over 250 runs.

The Indian coach was questioned if “Bazball” could transform Test cricket.

“Don’t really know what’s that (Bazball),” Dravid said with a smile.

“I would definitely say that the kind of cricket they have been playing in the last few months has been really good. They have been really good at chasing. Chasing is not easy in the fourth innings, especially in England.

“Whatever brand of cricket one wants to play, it depends a lot on the players and the kind of form they are in presently. When the players are in good form, you obviously play a more positive game, as we did in that innings where Pant and Jadeja were batting.”

The loss and points penalty for slow over-rate dropped India to fourth in the ICC World Test Championship rankings.

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The fifth England-India Test was initially slated for 2017. India was confident, and England wasn’t the same as they were before. Dravid said the year-long gap is no explanation for the result.

“I don’t want to make excuses,” Dravid said. “I wasn’t part of the team then. India was on a roll at that stage. England were probably in a slightly different situation at that point of time. But they have come here on the back of three consecutive wins against New Zealand. We have had a long gap in between Test cricket, but no excuses.

“They played well over the five days. We had our opportunities, we played well over the first three days. We couldn’t maintain that. That’s why Test cricket is hard. And that’s why Test cricket means that you have got to be able to keep putting those performances right through the five days. We were not able to do that and they did that better than us and they deserved to win this Test match.”