India coach Rahul Dravid has said that the young Indian batsmen will take back a lot of lessons from the T20I series defeat to Sri Lanka, one of them being able to find a way to “scrap” on tough pitches.
“They (India’s batsmen) would’ve liked to have scored a few more runs certainly. But it is a great opportunity to learn and reflect on the fact that not all wickets are going to be flat and we need a way to scrap and find a way to score 130-140 on wickets like these and bat in these conditions. It’s really good learning,” Dravid, who’s coaching India on this tour of Sri Lanka, said.
“They’re all young players, they haven’t played a lot in these kinds of conditions, they haven’t played a lot of international cricket so I think it is a great opportunity to reflect on these performances, reflect on these conditions and maybe come up with some better strategies. Let’s be fair, we don’t get these kinds of conditions very often in T20 cricket, but when you do I think you need to have the response and I think you need to be able to play slightly better. You’re not going to get 180 scores on wickets like this but you need to find a way to get 135-140. So I think it is going to be a good learning for a lot of these young guys. They’re all youngsters and we need to have patience with them and we need to give them more opportunities so that they can develop.
Dravid said he is “not disappointed” by India’s showing in the T20I series defeat, which he instead sees as a “good learning” for a young and inexperienced batting line-up.
“I am not disappointed. I think they’re young batters and they’re going to learn and they have to keep improving and get better. And it is only when they’re exposed to these kinds of conditions and this quality of bowling… I think the Sri Lankan team’s bowling attack is their international bowling attack. They’re missing a few batsmen because of various reasons but this is a top-quality attack. So I am not disappointed,” Dravid said.
India’s record against spin has been a bit iffy for a while and that problem more than manifested in the series, but Dravid doesn’t trace the problem back to lack of good spinners in domestic cricket.
“I think the wickets maybe in domestic cricket have got better and rightly so. So I think maybe the one thing that’s slightly different, when I was growing up, is that the wickets in domestic cricket tended to turn a little bit more or spin a bit more because some of them to be honest were underprepared. But maybe the wickets have gotten a bit better in the Ranji trophy which is great,” Dravid said.
“I don’t think the talent is missing – either in the spin bowling or the batting. You just need that little bit more experience in being able to sort of a few more different kinds of shots when we’re challenged with these kinds of wickets. We just need to sort of figure out a couple of more options. It was tough batting for them as well.”
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