Xtra Time Web Desk: Indian cricket team suffered a 28-run defeat on Day 4 of the first Test match against England at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad on Sunday. Despite taking a 190-run lead in the first innings, the hosts fell to pull off a result in their favour. The fingers are pointed towards Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer who have a string of poor scores in the longer format recently.
Shreyas Iyer in last 11 innings have scored a total of 114 runs only. The Kolkata Knight Riders captain has scores of 4 , 12 , 0 ,26 ,0 , 31 ,6 , 0, 4 ,31 ,0 in his last 11 test innings. While Shubman has scored 173 runs in last 11 innings. Gill’s score in last 11 innings are 13 ,18 ,6 ,10 ,29 ,2 , 26 ,10 ,36, 23 and 0 respectively.
Despite their continued failure, Team Indian Head Coach Dravid has backed them saying the duo has been picked on merit. On being asked about India’s struggles in the middle order, the former cricketer defended inexperienced players. With Kohli taking a break and veteran Ajinkya Rahane, and Cheteshwar Pujara out, the new-look middle order clearly lacked experience in chasing a 231-run target in the fourth innings against England in Hyderabad.
According to Dravid, “To be fair, there have been challenging wickets as well over the last few years. And it’s been a bit of a challenge for some of our young batsmen to adapt. But they’ve got the skill and they’ve got the ability, and they’ve not come here just like that; they’ve come here by scoring a lot of runs in domestic cricket, doing well in A-team cricket. So, you know, they are being picked on merit.”
If we look at the runs scored by Indian batters in last 10 test innings Virat Kohli tops the list with 631 runs followed by Yashasvi Jaiswal who has amassed 411 runs in 9 innings. Captain Rohit Sharma has scored 406 runs in last 10 innings in the longer format.