London: Former head coach Ravi Shastri believes India must focus on maintaining a strict line and length to build pressure from both ends if they are to bounce back in the ongoing fifth Test of the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy series at The Oval here on Friday.
By the time lunch break came, England reached 109/1 in 16 overs, and trail India by 115 runs with Zak Crawley and Ollie Pope unbeaten on 52 and 12 respectively. Crawley also shared a 92-run opening stand with Ben Duckett, who hit a quick 43, as India’s pacers were unable to nail their lines and lengths to leak a staggering 21 boundaries.
“The game has moved forward and India have been blown away. They lost four wickets for 20 runs, and then England scored so quickly. That is alarming for India, so they will sit down and say, ‘let’s focus on where we want to bowl’. The batters will try different things, but India need to stick to a line and length and build pressure at both ends, not try too many things,” said Shastri on Sky Sports’ broadcast during lunch break.
Ricky Ponting, the former Australia captain, also pointed out that India haven’t used short-ball enough to push England on the back foot. “Duckett and Crawley can put bowlers off their length, and I don’t think India bowled full enough with the new ball. They also haven’t bowled enough bouncers, something we talked about in the last game (at Old Trafford).”
“They haven’t pushed the batters back and got them thinking. England couldn’t have asked for much more. The disappointing thing from India’s point of view is how much the ball has done and they haven’t been able to use that at all.”
“We have watched England be front-foot and take the game forward over the last four or five years, and they have done that perfectly today. They have scored at almost seven runs an over,” he added.
(IANS)
