Ravi Shastri disappointed with India’s performance on day 4, says, “They just went into a shell”: Former Indian head coach Ravi Shastri has expressed his disappointment over team India’s performance in the second innings of the rescheduled fifth test match against England. Shastri reckons India were too defensive on day four and couldn’t score the runs they needed to bat England out of the contest.
After getting a healthy lead in the first innings, India lost its batting track in the second innings. Barring Rishabh Pant and Cheteshwar Pujara, all other batters looked pale and bowed down against the opposition.
The lacklustre performance on day four from the Indians turned the match upside down as England took advantage of the situation. Team India posted a total of 378 runs with a day and two sessions’ game left to play.
Though 378 looks a defendable total, England’s aggressive approach, which they famously call ‘Bazball’, made it a scanty total and chased it down without any discomfort. After a solid opening partnership from Alex Lees and Zak Crawley, Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow stitched a match-winning partnership to win the fifth test match and level the test series.
“I think (it was) disappointing, to say the least, because they could have batted England out of this contest. 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,” Ravi Shastri said while commentating for Sky Sports.
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Former England Captain, Kevin Peterson doesn’t seem pleased with the captaincy of Jasprit Bumrah. He opines that Jasprit Bumrah, who was making his debut as the captain, got all his tactics right against England.
“I don’t think Bumrah got his tactics right at all, and I say that with the greatest deal of respect. There is no way with a reverse swinging ball that he should make it that easy for the batter, because the batter is trying so hard to decipher which way that ball is swinging. When it’s reverse swinging at 90mph, the nicest place to bat is at the non-strikers’ end, and the ability to get to the non-strikers’ end as easily as they did this afternoon, it’s too easy,” opined Pietersen, who is also a part of the commentary panel.
With the victory, England levelled the five matches test series (Pataudi Trophy) by 2-2.
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