By India Today Sports Desk: India head coach Rahul Dravid was grilled by former India captain Sourav Ganguly and former India spinner Harbhajan Singh after India’s 210-run loss in the World Test Championship Final against Australia on Sunday, 11 June.
India had opted to bowl first in overcast conditions after winning the toss against Australia, a decision that essentially went horribly wrong. Australia piled up 469 runs in the first innings, and led India for most of the sessions from there on. India were set a target of 444 runs in the final innings of the game and Rohit Sharma’s side were bundled out for 234 runs.
WTC Final, India vs Australia: Day 5 Highlights
Rahul Dravid said that it was a hard loss for the team given they could not fight till the final session of the day. India lost seven wickets in the first session of play on Day 5 of the WTC Final in yet another batting failure at the big stage.
“Yeah, it was difficult. We have seen that we keep fighting no matter how far we are as per the situation. We have fought and made comebacks in the past. We gave a good fight in two days. We needed a brilliant, exceptional performance,” Dravid said.
“It was not a 469 runs wicket. I feel the runs we have leaked to the lower middle order, that is a thing. We knew what line and length we had to bowl, we didn’t bowl the right line. We gave away room to Travis Head who capitalized. I feel, in that stage, we went behind. Maybe, in the second innings, we could have been careful while playing a few shots,” Dravid further added.
Former India captain Sourav Ganguly engaged with India head coach Rahul Dravid in a discussion and asked him about the decision to bowl first in the final clash.
“Rahul I have played so much cricket without you. You have captained so much for India. I have played with you for so long and the discussion was always that we will take pressure at that start and not in the Day 5 of the Test match,” Ganguly put his question in context. And what followed next was an engaging period of discussion between three legends.
Full Transcript of The Interview
Rahul Dravid: Not like that, we came here and there was grass in the wicket. It was quite cloudy. We have seen that the batting gets easier as the game progresses in these conditions. We saw that various teams get an advantage batting second.
Being at 76-3, we thought we were in a good spot. I think we would have been in the game if 300 would have been the score needed.
The last time also when played at Edgbaston, we have seen 380 around being chased. I thought that 440 is way too much but I still felt that 320 around was a good thing to chase.
Sourav Ganguly: When you look at the top order, the average is very low, and that needs to be reduced. This is a problem that needs to be solved soon.
Rahul Dravid: There are a lot of players of high standards playing at no. 5 and 6. The high-profile players batting at no. 3, 4, and 6 they will go on to be called a legend. They are good performers and I am sure that they will see it and say that these are not of high standards as per them.
I will say that there have been better conditions at times when we played in South Africa or others. Every match is important and you need to win every match. Average is low for every player across teams. But as you said, you [Ganguly] are correct. If we give runs to our bowlers, it’s a plus point. Harbhajan used to play for us and he used to feel good when we pile up runs.
Harbhajan Singh: There are Test matches in India that finish in 2-3 days with spinners bowling from the first hour of the day. Do you think that is the trend that hurt us overseas?
Rahul Dravid: I think nobody wants wickets to turn from the first ball and turn square. As you get to the back end of it, everyone wants to have turns. Australia also used to play in wickets where the wickets get lost in three to four days. When you play on conditions like this, they can go variably. I agree that some wickets in India were difficult.
We are getting close. We are getting to the semi-finals, we are getting to finals, but I don’t think we played our best game in the last five days. We will be going through the data, the numbers, and stats, we will look back and see. We have been at our best, in the T20 world cup and the next semi-final, we are getting close.
