WTC Final: None of India’s batsmen showed temperament to draw the match – Madan Lal

Former Indian all-rounder Madan Lal believes none of the Indian batsmen showed temperament in the second innings to draw the match.

The Indian batsmen were not able to show the resistance and the stomach for the fight on the reserve day of the World Test Championship final against New Zealand at Ageas Bowl, Southampton on Wednesday.

Virat Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara were dismissed early on the final day by Kyle Jamieson and that was the turning point of the game. However, the Indian lower middle order could not show the gumption and the Indian team was skittled out for 170 runs.

Rishabh Pant and Ravichandran Ashwin adopted the aggressive approach whereas the fast bowlers could not hang around for a long time. Ajinkya Rahane was dismissed on an innocuous delivery down the leg-side by Trent Boult and India lost three big wickets in the opening session. Subsequently, they lost the remaining five wickets in the second session and could only set up a target of 139 runs for the Kiwis.

Meanwhile, Madan Lal gave a lot of credit to New Zealand captain Kane Williamson for leading from the front. Williamson was spot with his captaincy and also delivered with the bat as he scored 49 and 52* runs in both the innings.

“New Zealand were a deserving team and their captain deserves a lot of credit. The way they got our batsmen out and their field placements, I feel that (Kane Williamson’s) captaincy was top class. It is disappointing, it’s not that India is a bad team. They are actually a very good, balanced team. But our problem away from home has always been that if you don’t make runs, it becomes very difficult to win matches,” Lal told Aaj Tak.

“Today the disappointment is that we were all thinking that the match could be drawn. But none of the batsmen showed the temperament for that and if they stayed there for one or two hours more, this match could have been a draw,” he further said.

Indian batsmen did let the team down in the big summit clash as they could only manage 217 and 170 runs in both the innings.