India played the first Test against England at Headingley and received a defeat as England easily chased the target of 371. This was all possible due to the magnificent batting by Ben Duckett who scored 149 runs and the game was sealed with a six hit by Jamie Smith. This was their sixth consecutive win in Leeds – all by bowling first and with this stellar win England now has a lead of 1-0 in Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy.
Now India is all focused on the second Test which will be played in Edgbaston, Birmingham, starting today (July 2). But ahead of the match, in the pre-match press conference Indian team skipper Shubman Gill reflected on the defeat and mentioned the loopholes which were required to be fixed.
“When we were batting, I felt I could have, now looking back at it… the kind of shot I played, I felt I could have batted a little bit more, added another 50 runs with Rishabh [Pant]. That was my learning from when I was batting.”
“Definitely [chats have been had]. It’s been one of the things that we always talk about, especially with our batting depth… the lower order sometimes isn’t able to contribute as much as the other teams. Having said that, you can also look at the other side as well. I was batting on 147 and the way I got out, maybe I could have scored 50 more in partnership with Rishabh. If you get a good ball and you get out, that’s fine, but once you are set and you know that you don’t really have that much depth in your batting order, maybe the top order could take a little bit more responsibility and bat the opposition completely out of the game.
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“I mean, yes, we did play an extra bowler [in Leeds], I would say, like a proper fourth bowling all-rounder in the last match. And now having to look back at it, I think nobody really expects that your last six is going to get out in under 40 runs. Even if they play bad, you expect maybe score 100 runs or 80 runs. And these are things that you can’t really plan or you can’t really expect, but you can reflect on those things. And we have some things in mind on how, if we are in this kind of a situation again, how we can get better at it.”
