‘We left those 70-80 runs back in the hut’ – Rahul Dravid analyzes India’s first Test loss against England

Ben Stokes-led England pulled off a historic win at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium against India in the first Test of the ongoing series. Playing away from home, England showed incredible resilience and pulled off a miracle win, defeating the hosts by 28 runs. 

Led by Rohit Sharma, India required 231 runs to win the game and take the lead in the series. However, after getting bundled out for 202 runs, India lost the game in disappointing fashion.

Speaking of the loss, India’s head coach, Rahul Dravid, came forward to talk about how he thinks the side scored 70–80 fewer runs than needed. He also talked of the challenging nature of the pitch, which rendered the batters helpless.

“I mean, [the pitch was] challenging today, and I wouldn’t be so harsh to judge them [batters] on today. In fact, if anything, I thought we left probably 70 runs on the board in the first innings when conditions were pretty good to bat in on day two. I thought in those kinds of situations, we got ourselves into some good starts and we didn’t really capitalize. We didn’t get 100, we didn’t get somebody getting a really big 100 for us. So in some ways I think I just felt we left those 70-80 runs back in the hut in the first innings,” Dravid said in the post-match press conference. 

Pope’s innings was the difference in the game: Dravid

Furthermore, Dravid heaped praise on Ollie Pope’s mammoth innings that set the Indian team quite back. It is interesting to note that Pope scored 196 runs in 278 deliveries, which helped England post a big target on the board for the hosts to chase.

“We probably shouldn’t have been chasing 232. Truly exceptional innings to get us to chase that amount of runs. Yeah, so I think that, to me, that [Pope’s innings] really was the difference in the game. I think that’s something that set us back he played a lot of high-risk shots but executed them superbly. And that’s incredible, on a wicket like that 196 when nobody else got 50 was a difference in the game,” Dravid said.

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