Shubman Gill minces no words after India fail to defend 371 vs England in his 1st Test as captain: 'Never a good sign…'
Shubman Gill addressed India's issues after the team failed to defend 371 against England at Headingley, Leeds.
When you’re defending 350 runs on the final day of a Test match, nine out of 10 times, the match ends up in the bowling team's favour – unless the opposition completely shuts shop and plays for the draw. But this England team is different. They believe in Bazballing their way out of trouble. Blame Ben Stokes as much as you want for his decision to bat first, but in the end, the England captain knew what his team was capable of batting last. For the second time in three years, England have chased down a total in excess of 370 against India, souring Shubman Gill's first Test as India captain.
India has only itself to blame. Lost a Test despite five individual centuries and letting the game slip away because of two lower-order collapses. Besides, who can forget the multiple dropped catches that hurt them dearly? Contrastingly, England were just the opposite, with their tail scoring vital runs and sneaking through the door whenever the opportunity arrived. After the match, captain Gill acknowledged the fighting spirit of his team, but agreed it didn't mask the lingering issues.
"A brilliant Test, we had our chances. Drop catches, lower not contributing cost us. Yesterday, we were thinking of giving them 430, but our last wickets fell for 25. Even today, I thought we had our chances after the brilliant first wicket. Didn't go to hand. We spoke about the first-inns collapse, happens, we have to rectify that going forward. Never a good sign. Chances don't come easy on wickets like this, but we have a young team. Learning one. Hope to improve that. The first session, we bowled spot-on. Didn't give away runs, but it's hard to stop runs once it gets old. Have to keep taking wickets when the ball got soft," Gill told Michael Atherton at the post-match presentation ceremony.
If only…
India dropped over six dropped catches, with Yashasvi Jaiswal emerging as the biggest culprit, putting down 4 chances – 3 in the first innings and 1 in the second. Couple that with the three dropped catches he suffered in Australia during the MCG Test, and it makes for a concerning picture. Besides, India lost its last 7 wickets for 41 in the first dig and 6/21 in the second, which robbed them of at least 100 runs in both innings. Had they held onto its catches and avoided the catastrophic lower-order collapse, who knows what the result would have been?
It was an interesting three sessions for India. They went wicketless in the first session, where surprisingly, despite overcast conditions, there was no support for the fast bowlers, allowing Ben Duckett and Zak Crawley to make merry. Surprisingly, Jasprit Bumrah, who was supposed to do the bulk of the damage for India, could not pick up a single wicket. It was only when the skies opened up that India finally got a breakthrough, with Prasidh Krishna dismissing Crawley. Prasidh went on to pick up 2 wickets, as did Shardul Thakur. Ravindra Jadeja got the ball to spit out of the rough, but only had Ben Stokes’ wicket to show for his effort. Eventually, Joe Root’s half-century and Jamie Smith’s fearless approach got England over the line.
“In the first session, we were spot on, didn’t give away runs. But it’s hard to stop the runs once the ball gets old. Have to keep taking wickets even when the ball gets soft. Ravindra Jadeja bowled brilliantly, created chances,” the skipper added.
