Former England skipper Nasser Hussain feels India hasn’t been as ruthless as they would have liked to be with the bat in the first two Test matches of the ongoing series. While India lost the opening Test match by 28 runs, the hosts bounced back to win the second game by 106 runs.
However, India was not able to put the Vizag Test to bed despite being in the dominating position. India posted 396 runs in the first innings after Yashasvi Jaiswal scored a fine double century whereas the hosts scored 255 with Shubman Gill scoring a hundred in the second essay.
But apart from these two young batters, none of the Indian batsmen could go past the 50-run mark in either of the innings. Hussain feels India has deeply missed Virat Kohli’s aggression on the field.
Nasser Hussain said on Sky Sports, “He’s [Virat Kohli] an aggressive cricketer. He’s in your face cricketer, but actually, I think with the bat, in three of the four innings, India haven’t quite been ruthless as they would’ve liked to be.”
“It’s 1-1 and they’ve batted very well. The likes of KL Rahul batted well, and Shubman Gill and young Jaiswal, with his double hundred, played brilliantly, but if you ask Rahul Dravid.”
Even head coach Rahul Dravid admitted that they left runs on the board in both innings of the Vizag Test match.
Meanwhile, India scored 436 runs in the first innings at Hyderabad but once again none of the batters could go on to reach the three-digit mark. Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, and Ravindra Jadeja were all dismissed in the 80s and India lost despite taking a 190-run lead. Hussain feels England faced a similar problem in Vizag with their batters not being able to convert their starts.
“England’s problems in the second Test match, apart from Crawley, there were a lot of 30s and 40s, and they may look good on the scorecard, but they don’t win you Test matches, and that was similar with India in Hyderabad.”
“None of their batters went on to get a 100 and a big hundred, and if you look at the second Test with Jaiswal getting the double hundred in the first innings and Shubman Gill getting a 100 in the second innings, that’s what wins you Test matches.”
The third Test match between India and England will be played at Rajkot from 15th February onwards.
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