Gambhir Defends India's Tailenders After Headingley Collapse, Cites Dropped Catches as Key Factor

After a disappointing loss to England at Headingley, where India suffered a dramatic collapse, head coach Gautam Gambhir has voiced his support for the team's lower-order batsmen.

India dropped crucial catches throughout the Test match on a surface that didn't offer a lot of help. © Getty

India's defeat came after England successfully chased down a target of 371 runs on the final day. Despite posting a total of 835 runs and featuring five centurions, including Rishabh Pant with a century in each innings, India couldn't secure the win.

The turning point, according to many, were two significant batting collapses.

• The first collapse saw them lose 7 wickets for 41 runs in the first innings.
• The second collapse involved losing 6 wickets for 31 runs in the second innings.

These collapses transformed the match and allowed England to seize control.

According to Shubman Gill, the team had aimed for a target of around 435 runs. Gautam Gambhir suggested that a first-innings total of 570 or 580 would have put India in a dominant position.

However, Gambhir defended the lower order, despite their struggles. Shardul Thakur and Prasidh Krishna faced criticism for their shot selection.

"Look, first of all, it's not that they weren't applying themselves. Sometimes people fail. And that's okay," Gambhir stated. "I know it's disappointing. And more importantly, I think they were more disappointed than anyone, because they knew we had the opportunity. It's not like they're not working hard in the nets. These things happen. Even proper batters fail. Hopefully they'll learn, and hopefully we'll get better performances from our tail. And that is not the only reason we lost the Test match."

Another factor contributing to India's loss was their poor catching performance. The team dropped seven catches, with Yashasvi Jaiswal being a repeat offender. Ben Duckett, who was dropped on 97, went on to score a crucial 149.

Gill acknowledged the dropped catches and emphasized the need for improvement. "Yes, that was something that we spoke about," Gill said. "But when you are out there in the middle, it happens so quickly. And I think it would be one of those things that we have to rectify in the upcoming matches. Chances don't come easy, especially on wickets like these, and we dropped quite a few catches. But I think we have got a young team, still a learning one, and hopefully, in the next matches, we'll be able to improve on those aspects."

Despite having a young team, Gambhir refused to use it as an excuse for the loss. "Every defeat is bad. It's not about a young team or an experienced team. It's an Indian team. We take pride in winning each and every game for our country. A young team is not an excuse. We represent 140 crore proud Indians. We will try and give our absolute best. There are no excuses. We will turn up every Test match thinking that we can win the test match and win the series."

Gambhir also confirmed that Jasprit Bumrah would play only two more Test matches in the series, following a pre-arranged plan to manage his workload. The decision on which two matches Bumrah would play remained undecided.

"No, we won't change the plans. I think for us to manage his workload is more important because there's a lot of cricket going forward and we know what he brings on the table as well. Before he came on the show, it was already decided that he's going to play three Test matches."

"But let's see how his body turns out. We haven't decided which two other Test matches he's going to play. [Even without Bumrah] we absolutely have the bowling attack [to compete]. We believe in them. We trust in them. When we pick the squad, we pick the squad on trust, not on hope. As I just mentioned, those are inexperienced bowlers but they will keep getting better. We saw in this Test match as well that for the first four days, even on day five, we were in a position where we could have won the Test match. We believe and we trust that these boys will deliver for us."