India head coach Rahul Dravid didn’t filter his words as he acknowledged failures in the batting department after his team lost the T20I series against West Indies 3-2 in Florida on Sunday (August 13).
Speaking at the post-match press conference, Dravid said plenty of work needs to be done in order to improve the 'batting depth' that has troubled the Indian side for long.
The coach also admitted that mistakes were made in the series but was hopeful that the ODI team would fare better in the upcoming World Cup at home.
"Our squad (for the world cup) will be a little different to what we have here. In terms of the squad that we had here, it didn't allow us the flexibility to have the combination to allow us to make the changes. Going forward, we will have to look at certain areas where we can get better,” Dravid stated.
"Finding depth in our batting is an area that we are trying to address and do as best as we possibly can. But that's certainly an area that we need to look at, how we can not weaken our bowling attack but have a certain depth in our batting that can go deeper. As the game is going on, the scores are becoming bigger and bigger.
"If you look at the West Indies, they had Alzarri Joseph coming at No 11. He can hit a mean ball. There are sides that have depth, we have challenges on that front. We need to work on that. It's certainly a series that has shown us that we need to build on that depth," he added.
During the tour of West Indies, India won the two-Test series 1-0 and the three-match ODI series 2-1. In the absence of several big names, the Men in Blue fought back from 0-2 down in the five-match T20I series but succumbed to an eight-wicket defeat in the decider.
Dravid was not pleased with the eventual result. "You get into any series wanting to win it, that's the first thing that we wanted to do. We didn't tick that off. We didn't win the series, that was a disappointment. Other than that, there were some young guys we wanted to try out, wanted to give them opportunities in the series. We gave a few debuts in the series. There were other people as well that we trialled out in different combinations. From that perspective, there were some positives, some tick marks from some of the players. We can look forward to the future with a lot of hope,” he said.
"Here (in T20Is) we did well to come from 2-0 down, but we couldn't close out the series. We did a few mistakes today. Through all five games, we made some mistakes, in the first couple of games and even today. We didn't bat as well as we could have. But that can happen. It's a young team a developing team. There are going to be times when there would be a few ups and downs. Of course, we are disappointed. We would have wanted to get the right result. To come from 0-2 down would have been special. Credit to the West Indies, they are a good T20 side. Playing in their home conditions, they played particularly well,” he further remarked.
"We tried to do a few things (in the ODI series) with the World Cup and the Asia Cup coming up. The goals of that (ODI series) were slightly different from what we wanted to achieve, and glad there were some important lessons from that one-day series and got the right result.
For Dravid, one of the biggest takeaways from the West Indies tour was the performances of the debutants – Yashasvi Jaiswal, Tilak Varma and Mukesh Kumar.
"All the three guys who made their debuts for us in the series, stood up. Whether it was Yashasvi Jaiswal in that game; he played a really good innings in the fourth game at the top of the order, and showed his ability. He has shown us what he can do in the IPL and it's nice that he could replicate that in the international scene. Tilak Varma was very good coming in the midde order, he came in at some really difficult situations. But every time played with a lot of intent, played very positively, looked to move the game along, fielded brilliantly throughout the series, and bowled one or two overs as well. So really positive signs from Tilak. Having a left hander in the middle does make a difference against some of the attacks that we are playing against."
(With Cricbuzz Inputs)