India's Batting Woes: Coach Gambhir Defends Lower Order After Test Collapse

India's recent Test defeat at Headingley has sparked debate, but head coach Gautam Gambhir is standing by his team, particularly the lower order, after their batting collapses.

Missed catches hurt India's chances in the Test match. © Getty

India's spirited fight ultimately fell short on the fifth day at Headingley, as England completed a 371-run chase with relative ease. This marked India's seventh defeat in their last nine Tests, a particularly frustrating one given their strong position earlier in the match.

Despite scoring 835 runs and boasting five individual centurions, including Rishabh Pant with a century in each innings, India couldn't secure a victory. The key culprits? Two significant batting collapses.

Key Innings Collapses

• First Innings: India lost 7 wickets for just 41 runs.
• Second Innings: A further 6 wickets fell for a mere 31 runs.

The first collapse prevented India from building a truly imposing first-innings lead, allowing England to stay in the game. The second collapse left India with a defendable but ultimately insufficient target of 371.

Shubman Gill, who marked his captaincy debut with a brilliant century, revealed that the team had aimed for a target of around 435. However, Gautam Gambhir believes the momentum shifted much earlier. "If we could've got to 570, 580 in the first innings, we could've dominated from there," he stated.

Despite the lower order's struggles, Gambhir defended their efforts. Shardul Thakur, selected for his all-round abilities, was dismissed playing expansive shots in both innings, while Prasidh Krishna fell attempting a slog sweep.

Gambhir's Support for the Lower Order

"Look, first of all, it's not that they weren't applying themselves. Sometimes people fail. And that's okay," Gambhir said. "I know it's disappointing. And more importantly, I think they were more disappointed than anyone, because they knew we had the opportunity. It's not like they're not working hard in the nets. These things happen. Even proper batters fail. Hopefully they'll learn, and hopefully we'll get better performances from our tail. And that is not the only reason we lost the Test match."

Another significant factor in India's defeat was their poor catching performance. They dropped seven catches throughout the match, with Yashasvi Jaiswal being a repeat offender. One dropped catch in particular, of Ben Duckett on 97, proved costly as he went on to score a match-defining 149. Gill acknowledged the need for improvement in this area.

Need for Improvement in Catching

"Yes, that was something that we spoke about," Gill said. "But when you are out there in the middle, it happens so quickly. And I think it would be one of those things that we have to rectify in the upcoming matches. Chances don't come easy, especially on wickets like these, and we dropped quite a few catches. But I think we have got a young team, still a learning one, and hopefully, in the next matches, we'll be able to improve on those aspects."

While acknowledging the team's youth, Gambhir dismissed it as an excuse for the loss. "Every defeat is bad. It's not about a young team or an experienced team. It's an Indian team. We take pride in winning each and every game for our country. A young team is not an excuse. We represent 140 crore proud Indians. We will try and give our absolute best. There are no excuses. We will turn up every Test match thinking that we can win the test match and win the series."

Bumrah's Workload Management

Gambhir also confirmed that Jasprit Bumrah would play only two more Test matches, as per a pre-series plan to manage his workload. The decision on which those would be is yet to be made. "No, we won't change the plans. I think for us to manage his workload is more important because there's a lot of cricket going forward and we know what he brings on the table as well. Before he came on the show, it was already decided that he's going to play three Test matches."

He further added, "But let's see how his body turns out. We haven't decided which two other Test matches he's going to play. [Even without Bumrah] we absolutely have the bowling attack [to compete]. We believe in them. We trust in them. When we pick the squad, we pick the squad on trust, not on hope. As I just mentioned, those are inexperienced bowlers but they will keep getting better. We saw in this Test match as well that for the first four days, even on day five, we were in a position where we could have won the Test match. We believe and we trust that these boys will deliver for us."