Vikram Rathour, the batting coach for Team India, has offered support to struggling batters Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer as they come under the scanner for recent poor performances. Rathour emphasised the need for patience with players like Gill and Iyer, who faced significant challenges during the 28-run first Test defeat in Hyderabad.
Gill struggled against England’s spinners, scoring only 23 and 0, while Iyer couldn’t convert promising starts of 35 and 13 into substantial scores.
“There are young batters in our team who have not played much Test cricket,” Rathour said at the press conference in Visakhapatnam. “So, we need to be a bit patient with them. Batters like (Shubman) Gill, (Yashasvi) Jaiswal and (Shreyas) Iyer will eventually start getting big runs, I’m sure of it.”
Rathour encouraged them to play to their strengths and focus on scoring runs, highlighting that the essence of batting lay in accumulating runs rather than avoiding dismissals.
“They need to score runs by playing their shots, as you need to back your strengths,” he said. “Batting is always about scoring runs. It’s not about not getting out but how many runs you put on the board.”
As India faces selection decisions with KL Rahul and Ravindra Jadeja ruled out due to injury and Virat Kohli withdrawing for personal reasons, Sarfaraz Khan has earned his maiden call-up, while Rajat Patidar is also in contention.
Rathour acknowledged the difficulty in choosing between Sarfaraz and Patidar, emphasising their significant impact in domestic cricket. He suggested that the decision to award a Test cap to one of the two would be made by Rahul Dravid and Rohit Sharma in the coming days.
“It will be a tough choice,” said Rathour. “What value they bring to the team, of course, is that they are super players. We have seen how well they have done in domestic cricket in the last few years. So on these kind of wickets, I think they can really add a lot of value to the team. If you have to pick one, it’s of course going to be tough. But that’s a decision I think Rahul and Rohit Sharma will have to make in a day or so.”
Rathour sought more from the team’s batters. “I want batters to show more discipline,” he said. “Intent should be there, but they have to decide which shot to play, always want them to score runs.”
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