India head coach Rahul Dravid has not had a very good start to his coaching tenure as India lost its third straight away Test match as they lost to England by 7 wickets in the rescheduled fifth Test at Edgbaston after failing to defend a 378-run target.
Indian bowlers struggled in the fourth innings on a track that had very little to offer. Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow made a mockery of India's third and fourth pacers Mohammed Siraj and Shardul Thakur.
Earlier, on day four, the name of off-spinner R Ashwin had trended on Twitter after England openers Alex Lees and Zak Crawley had added 107 runs for the opening wicket and then Root and Bairstow hammered the Indian bowling attack, finishing the day on 259/3 and then completing the job on day 5 in just two sessions.
Head coach Rahul Dravid was asked if India missed a trick by not including veteran spinner Ravichandran Ashwin in the post-match press conference.
He said: "I think you can always look at the hindsight, look at the combinations of your team. I think Shardul has done a good job for us in these games, it is not easy to leave someone like Ash (Ravichandran Ashwin) out in a Test match, but having said that, when we had looked at the pitch on the first day, it had a pretty even covering of grass, we felt there was enough in the wicket for the fast-bowlers.”
Ashwin had not played in any of the four Tests previously in 2021 as well, despite calls for him to come into the team and with him missing this final Test as well, which India lost, questions are being continuously raised about the selection policy of the visitors.
However, Dravid pointed out that ball didn’t spin much at Edgbaston and the lack of sun means the pitch didn't break up towards the last two days.
"Coming to the last day, the wicket has not really spun you know. Whether it was Jack Leach or Ravindra Jadeja who bowled in the Test match, if anything because maybe the weather played a part in the first three days, there weren't long phases of sun but the wicket did not break up as we might have expected it to. It did not spin as much as we expected, it is easy to look back at the fifth day and say it would have been nice to have another spinner, but it did not turn enough to justify that. I think we accept that they played really well, we could have just hit the areas better in the fourth innings," he added.
(NDTV inputs)
