ENG vs IND 2018: Felt Sad To See India Perform Poorly In Birmingham, Says Virender Sehwag

Former India opener Virender Sehwag has said he was hurt to see the Indian batsmen fail so miserably in the first England vs India Test.

India lost the low-scoring thriller by 31 runs in the first session of day four. One of the prime reasons behind the defeat was the failure of the batsmen apart from Virat Kohli.

The 29-year old waged a lone battle, making 149 in the first innings before scoring a composed 51 in the second. However, his heroic effort went in vain due to lack of support from the other end. The likes of Murali Vijay, Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul and Ajinkya Rahane absolutely failed with the bat.

As a result, Kohli failed to find any kind of support from the other batsmen. Vijay (20 and 6), Dhawan (26 and 13), Rahul (4 and 13) and Rahane (15 and 2) aggregated only 99 runs in the match. Consequently, India made heavy weather of an 194-run chase and were all out for just 162.

It was not the performance that everyone was expecting from the side which is at the top of the rankings for quite some time now. However, Sehwag said ranking matters little before expressing his disappointment over India’s performance.

“Team rankings do not matter in cricket. If you play well on a particular day, you will win. I felt sad to see India play poorly on those three days in Birmingham. The bowlers did a good job but the batting wasn’t good. If there would have been one batsman who could have supported Kohli in the first innings then India would have got a lead of 50-60 runs. The margin of our defeat was just 31 runs. As I have said earlier, it is always important to match the first innings score of the opposition,” he told IndiaTV.

Sehwag said only three Indian players will be confident going into Lord’s. The three players are Kohli, R Ashwin and Ishant Sharma.

“India should have won the first Test. The batsmen spoiled all the good things done by the bowlers. Only three players will be confident ahead of Lord’s and they are Kohli, Ashwin and Ishant. They all performed well at Edgbaston and will be confident going into Lord’s. But India can’t win the match with just three players. All the 11 players need to contribute.”

While Kohli shone with the bat, Ashwin and Ishant starred with the ball. Ashwin picked up seven wickets in the game while Ishant took 6 wickets in the match, including a five-wicket haul in the second innings.

Sehwag went on to say that the team management now needs to keep the players motivated so that they stay in a fresh state of mind before the second match.

“The team management, whether it is Sanjay Bangar, Ravi Shastri or Bharat Arun… they have to keep talking to the players and tell them that they should forget whatever happened in Edgbaston and should focus on the next match. If the failure in Edgbaston continues to be there on the minds of the batsmen then it would create problems for India in Lord’s. Team management has to motivate the players. There should be some fun activities during the free time, some team bonding sessions so that they are in fresh state of mind before hitting the nets,” he said.