Ollie Pope truly played an exceptional innings: Rahul Dravid

India dominated the primary two days of the Hyderabad Check, however Pope’s 196 turned the match on its head. Debutant left-arm spinner Tom Hartley’s second-innings seven-for then accomplished England’s beautiful turnaround within the contest. England have been bowled out for 246 after profitable the toss and batting first. India replied with 436. Overcoming the 190-run lead, England set India a difficult goal of 231. The hosts might solely attain 202.

Talking at a post-match press convention, Dravid mentioned that India should return to the drafting board and chalk out a plan to take care of Pope’s counter-attack in a better manner. “We’ll need to counter that (Bazball). I actually have not seen it being achieved that (taking part in sweeps, reverse sweeps) constantly towards that high quality of bowlers. You have seen folks attempt that earlier than, and play some distinctive innings. However to have the ability to play it that constantly and that efficiently with out making that many errors, and perhaps one or two odd errors, I most likely have not seen it,” Dravid mentioned.

“Yeah, particularly, the reverse sweep…I believe the sweep is one thing that we have seen folks make use of previously. However to have the ability to play a reverse sweep that constantly and that efficiently for that lengthy, , hats off to Pope,” he added in reward of the England batter.

By the way, Sunday was solely the second occasion when India misplaced a Check match after taking a lead of 190-plus. That they had earlier misplaced to Sri Lanka in Galle in 2015 after gaining a lead of 192 runs.

Despite the fact that India’s lead spinners Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja didn’t have the sort of influence they have been anticipated to have within the second innings, Dravid backed them to come back good within the subsequent sport. He, nevertheless, urged for extra self-discipline from his bowlers.

“We’ve to get extra disciplined with the place we pitch the ball. We’ll work on it and we are going to get higher at it as we acquired some world-class spinners. It isn’t the primary time that they have been challenged. One of many good issues about our spinners is that they’ve all the time come again. However Pope actually performed an distinctive innings. And if any individual does one thing distinctive, we’ll shake his hand and congratulate him.”

“It is necessary that we reply. We have to give you some plans and techniques and see how we are able to make him (Pope) play these photographs from much more tough traces. We should be much more disciplined and meticulous with our execution as a result of I believed our execution was a bit bit off,” the Indian head coach admitted.

The second Check of the five-match India-England sequence shall be performed in Visakhapatnam from February 2 to six.

–By A Cricket Correspondent