XtraTime Web Desk: With Rishabh Pant at the crease and Ravichandran Ashwin still to come, India has a good chance to reach the 400 mark on day 2 of the third test which is a very good score on Nottingham pitch as it is helping the bowlers. But India’s batting coach Sanjay Bangar feels that another 50 runs will be a good first innings score for the visitors and they won’t force Pant to play big shot from the start of day 2.
“Well, there is no clear sort of a direction to Pant. It is just that he plays his natural game. Ashwin has been consistent in the lower order. We also have lower order batsmen who can stick around. If we can add another 50 runs from here it will be a good first innings total after being put into bat,” said Bangar at the post day 1 press-conference.
On being asked what was the basic difference between Lord’s and Trent Bridge, Bangar added,”We all know the conditions were pretty harsh at Lord’s and before that the Test we lost was by a gap of 30 runs. I agree the performances of the batsmen were not to our expectations. But certain adjustments were made, batsmen applied themselves, they showed a lot of discipline in leaving balls and because of that we find ourselves in the position that we are in today.”
Rishabh Pant has made his test debut in this test against England. He is well known for his fearless batting. He surprised everyone again in the dressing room when he hit Adil Rashid while facing only second delivery to open his account.
“We were all very surprised, but he is a confident cricketer. He has come through the ranks. He has played Ranji Trophy, graduated in the India A format, so his has been a gradual rise. He has tremendous faith in his abilities. The moment he hit a six, my mind went back to Vinod Kambli, because even he started his first-class career with a six,” said Bangar.
Like everyone Bangar too looked a bit down after skipper Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane missed out their centuries.
It is a good score, maybe in hindsight you could say that probably Ajinkya and Virat they themselves would have been disappointed with the kind of shots they played. They could very well have carried on. Losing hardik in the last ball before the end of the day’s play, or losing Pujara before lunch, on the stroke of lunch, there are areas we still look at correcting,” concluded Bangar.