Test Collapse: Gambhir Defends India's Lower Order, Cites Catching Woes as Key Factor

India's recent Test defeat at Headingley has sparked debate, but head coach Gautam Gambhir is standing by his team, particularly the lower order. Despite scoring 835 runs and featuring five centurions, including Rishabh Pant with a century in each innings, India fell short against England.

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

The match was marred by two significant collapses: 7 wickets for 41 runs in the first innings and 6 wickets for 31 in the second. These collapses proved costly, turning a potentially dominant position into a chase of 371 for England, which they achieved with relative ease.

Shubman Gill, who marked his captaincy debut with a century, revealed the team was aiming for a target of around 435. However, Gautam Gambhir believes a first-innings total of 570 or 580 would have allowed India to seize control.

While the collapses exposed vulnerabilities in the lower order, with Shardul Thakur and Prasidh Krishna falling to questionable shot selections, Gambhir defended their efforts.

"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 significant factor contributing to India's defeat was their substandard catching. The team dropped seven catches throughout the match, with Yashasvi Jaiswal being a repeat offender. A dropped catch of Ben Duckett, who was on 97 at the time, proved particularly damaging, as he went on to score a match-defining 149.

Gill acknowledged the importance of improving their catching, stating, "Yes, that was something that we spoke about. 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 the team's youth, Gambhir dismissed the notion that it was 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, as per a pre-series plan to manage his workload. The decision on which matches he would participate in is yet to be made.

"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."