Former India pacer Zaheer Khan has highlighted the hosts’ batting frailties in the ongoing series against England, saying it was only because of the individual brilliance of Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill that India won the second Test. Indian batters didn’t fire as a collective unit in the second Test as the home side rode on opener Jaiswal’s first innings 209 and Shubman’s 104-run knock in the second essay besides pacer Jasprit Bumrah’s sensational bowling effort to secure a series-levelling 106-run win.
“There are a few concerns when you look at the team – batting is something that they will be talking about because under these conditions, on this sort of a surface, we have seen India do better,” Zaheer said on JioCinema.
India set England a 399-run target and despite Zak Crawley being the only one breaching the half-century mark, the visitors were able to score 292 runs.
“You look at England’s second innings, there is only one half-century and they still managed to get close to 300. That is what collective effort can do. We have seen two brilliant innings – Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill, but with the bat, there is a lot of work to be done,” Zaheer added.
In a dominant position after taking a 190-run first innings lead, India had collapsed to a shocking 28-run defeat in the series opener and were under tremendous heading into the second Test.
Additionally, India were without star batter Virat Kohli and the injured trio of KL Rahul, Ravindra Jadeja and Mohammed Shami in Vizag.
“If you are one down in the series, you need that aggression, fight and belief to make sure that it is 1-1 after the end of the game. And I think Rohit was able to bring out those individual performances from the players.” The third Test of the five-match series, which is part of the current World Test Championship (WTC) cycle, will begin on February 15 in Rajkot.
