What was our coaching staff doing, questions Mohammed Azharuddin
Mohammed Azharuddin believes that the coaching staff is also to be blamed for India's loss in the Test series against England. He mentioned that the batsmen couldn't play swing and the openers failed to perform which left the middle order with a huge task of holding the game in India's favour.
India played four Test matches against England and struggled throughout their journey to keep up with the circumstances that came in their way. The Indian batsmen failed to perform well while facing the English swing bowling attack, due to which the team couldn't bounce back into the series. Even though the bowlers had been consistent throughout the series, all their efforts were in vain as the batsmen couldn't perform to the best of their abilities. Players like Virat Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara tried to get a grip on games, but the rest of the team couldn't support them which was a major drawback for India.Â
Azharuddin has stated that the coaching staff was also to be blamed for the defeat. He felt that India kept repeating the same mistakes in every match and the coaching staff should've taken appropriate measures right after the first match itself.Â
"We lost the series because of poor batting and our batsmen were committing the same mistakes throughout. What is our coaching staff doing? Technically, our batsmen were found wanting. We didn’t play the moving ball well. We can’t depend only on Virat Kohli. Openers like Shikhar Dhawan and KL Rahul too didn’t get runs. The middle-order was left with too much to do. We should have taken at least a 100-run lead after Cheteshwar Pujara’s hundred (in the fourth Test)
He also talked about how the selection errors further worsened the situation for India. Dropping Cheteshwar Pujara in the first Test and including Kuldeep Yadav in the second Test didn't workout out in India's favour.
“I can’t say if there was any selection error or not because I wasn’t there to see what prompted the India team management to make those changes. But the entire batting unit didn’t respond well to the challenges. I have to praise the way Kohli batted throughout the series. But it boils down to one thing. It’s a team game and all the other batsmen need to complement their captain,” Azharuddin concluded.
