India vs England | You can't just land in England and be successful, asserts Shane Watson

Apart from captain Virat Kohli, the Indian batsmen struggled against the swinging conditions on offer in the first four Tests of the five match series. The English seamers constantly troubled the Indian batsmen and the visitors failed to get their technique of playing the moving ball right and ended up throwing away their wickets. Although the Indian bowlers did their job well, the failure of the batting unit is being touted as the primary reason for the visitors to lose their third consecutive series in England.

“It is not easy to play swing bowling. Trust me when Australia travel to England for ashes next year, it won't be easy for them also. England is the only place where the ball swings that much particularly due to conditions. You can't just land in England once in every three years and successful,” Watson seconded the idea as reported by PTI.

India's next overseas tour is to another country where they have not had a lot of success in recent times - Australia. However, Watson believes that the Indian batting department would put up a good show in Australia as compared to their performance in tough swinging conditions in England.

“Look, if you check the records, Indian batsmen of late have done well in Australia. Virat has scored loads of runs and I remember a fine century by KL Rahul at SCG. Even Rahane scored a few runs. In Australia the kookaburra balls will stop swinging after the first 10-15 overs unlike Duke balls which can swing all day. I don't think bounce would be that much of a problem," the former Aussie allrounder said.

“I don't think any international team is playing swing bowling well these days and this is refelctive in the performance on overseas performance.”

The Indian batsmen even struggled against quality spin bowling in the fourth Test where Moeen Ali picked up nine wickets in total. Watson also revealed that he was not surprised as good spinners generally know how to utilize the pitch after three days of action. 

“Look at Shane Warne’s track record. He got wickets all around the world and knew how to bowl on day 4 and 5 tracks. Ditto for Lyon or Moeen, who know how to make best use of fourth and fifth day track,” Watson said.