Indian head coach Rahul Dravid called Test cricket to be hard at times but a format which is of great satisfaction. Dravid’s words come after India’s historic 4-1 series win over England at home. India became the first team in 112 years to win a five-match series by 4-1 after losing the first game.
“Series like this have to be earned and this is tough. Test cricket is hard at times. It’s hard in terms of your skill. It’s hard physically, as you’ve seen, it’s hard mentally,” Dravid said in a video posted on BCCI.tv.
“But it’s great satisfaction at the end of it. The satisfaction that you get winning a series like this coming from one behind to be able to win four. I think it’s just phenomenal,” he added.
A lot of youngsters stood tall for the Indian team in the absence of some big names. While the likes of Virat Kohli and Mohammed Shami were out of the whole series, the hosts missed KL Rahul for the majority part of too. In their absence, youngsters like Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel, Akash Deep and others stood tall with star performances.
“For a lot of you young guys, especially coming into this group, you are going to need each other to succeed. Whether you’re a batsman or bowler or whatever you are, your success is tied in with other people’s success. All of you are invested in each other’s success. And that’s really important going forward. It’s not about your success, but it’s about how you can help other people succeed, which will also help you succeed,” he said.
The Indian team lost the first Test and there were several moments where they could have gone down in more games. But the hosts forced epic comebacks to clinch the game. Dravid was pleased with these fightbacks. “There were times in the series when we were really challenged and pushed and we found a way to bounce back, which speaks to the skills that we have, the resilience that we have, the character that we have.
“On many occasions in this series, the games could have gone either way. But we always found people in this dressing room who stepped up and turned the game our way. And that was fantastic. So, you not only need to win the games when you have to fight back, which we did really well.
But you have to also win the games when you’re ahead and you don’t let the opposition come back in any situation,” he added.