Leeds: The lack of depth in India’s bowling resources was exposed during the opening Test defeat to England but head coach Gautam Gambhir has urged critics to give the inexperienced pace attack more time in its “early days”.
Barring Jasprit Bumrah, who got five wickets in England’s first innings, none of the other bowlers looked penetrative as the hosts chased down a target of 371 with minimum fuss on the fifth and final day of the match on Tuesday.
The pace trio of Prasidh Krishna, Mohammed Siraj and Shardul Thakur was not consistent enough with the line and length.
“We will have to give them time. Earlier, we used to have four fast bowlers in the squad with an experience of more than 40 Tests. It doesn’t make such a big impact in one-day or T20 matches, but when you go to Australia, England, or South Africa for Tests, experience matters,” said Gambhir following the loss.
“These are early days. If we start judging our bowlers after every Test, how will we develop a bowling attack? Outside Bumrah and Siraj, we don’t have that much experience, but they (the others) have quality, which is why they are in this dressing room.
“But we have got to keep backing them because it’s not about one tour. It’s about building a fast-bowler battery that can serve India for a long time in Test cricket.”
Also part of the squad, Arshdeep Singh is yet to a play a Test while Harshit Rana has featured in only two games.
He felt that Prasidh, who got five wickets in the match despite going for plenty of runs, has “all the ingredients of becoming a very good Test match bowler”.
He also defended Shardul Thakur, who just bowled 16 overs in the entire match with only six overs in the first innings.
“Sometimes captain goes with his instincts and Ravindra Jadeja gave us control in the first innings, that was important and we could rotate our three pacers at the other end,” he said.
“We know what is Shardul’s quality and that is why he is playing for India and is in the dressing room. Just because he is the fourth seamer does not necessarily mean that he has to be brought ahead of a spinner. A captain went by his instinct and depending on surface, we were playing.”
Sometimes people fail: Gambhir on lower-order
Two late batting collapses in as many innings cost India dearly in the series opener.
They were on course to amass 600 in their first innings but ended up with 471, losing seven wickets for 41 runs. In the second innings, the visitors lost six for 31 to allow England to come back in the game once again.
“First of all, I’ll tell you it’s not that they were not applying themselves,” Gambhir said of the tail.
“Sometimes people fail, and that’s okay. I know it is disappointing and more importantly, I think they are more disappointed than anyone. Because they knew that we had the opportunity. If we had got up to 570, 580 in the first innings, we could have dominated from there.
“It’s not that they’re not working hard in the nets as well. Sometimes these things happen, even the pure batters fail as well. So hopefully they got to learn and hopefully we can have better performances from our tail, and that is not the only reason why we lost the Test match, to be honest.”
Pleased with Gill’s captaincy debut
Shubman Gill scored a century on his captaincy debut. On leadership front, Gambhir said Gill is only going to get better.
“Look, first Test match, obviously, there are nerves. Not many people get that opportunity, and he was phenomenal. More importantly, I think the way he batted in the first innings. I’m sure he would have had his own nerves being the captain for the first time and then getting the hundred…
“He has everything that it takes for him to be a successful captain, but we have got to just give him time. It’s still very early days,” Gambhir added.
