NEW DELHI: The Indian batting order has dished out shoddy performances in the last few Tests.
Barring the second innings in Bengaluru (against New Zealand) and Perth (against Australia), India’s batting has suffered collapses one after another and that has led to four losses in the last 5 matches.
In the recently concluded Pink-ball Test against Australia in Adelaide, Team India yet again collapsed, in both innings, not even managing to bat a mere 81 overs combined.
Former India opener Aakash Chopra on Monday minced no words in saying that the Indian batting unit is going through a tough time and the batters are indeed struggling a lot, especially in the first innings.
“India batters have performed only twice, only in the second innings, in the last few Tests. We are not able to bat in the first innings. In challenging conditions, we have suffered collapses one after another. In last 5 Tests, India have scored runs only two times. So, India have 8 batting failures. Out of them, 5 are first innings failures. Out batting gets exposed in first innings,” Chopra said on his YouTube channel.
“The scope for improvement starts when you first start accepting that there is a problem. If you are not understanding the problem, then what are you going to improve? There is a problem in our batting. In the two times we have scored runs, the conditions were good for batting then,” he added.
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After the heavy defeat in the second Test, India skipper Rohit Sharma also attributed the demoralising loss to sub-standard batting.
“Firstly, it’s not a (mental) scar, it’s just we’ve lost a Test match. We didn’t play well enough. So it’s important in this short time that we have before the next Test match just to figure out certain things. You know, if you want to bat how we want to bat, and if you want to bowl, what lines and what lengths and what kind of fields placement we need to have. Those are the things more than anything else. Like I said, it’s still one-all and plenty of things left in this series and definitely a way for us to get back into it,” Rohit said.
“When you come to Australia I feel the best chance of winning a Test match is by putting runs on the board. And of course, when we won the toss, we elected to bat,” said Rohit.
“We knew that there would be challenges. But in the past, where the conditions have been a little challenging, we’ve batted really well to put runs on the board and then try and put pressure on the opposition.
“That is the disappointing part, that we didn’t bat well enough, you know, probably were 30-40 runs short with the bat in the first innings.”
After India’s defeat in the day-night Test, the Border-Gavaskar Trophy is levelled at 1-1.
The third Test starts from December 14 in Brisbane.