Former England spinner Monty Panesar feels Indian batters don’t have the right technique to survive overseas as they play on spinning tracks in the home conditions. India recently shared spoils with South Africa as the two-match Test series ended in 1-1.
India has been a force to reckon with in their conditions and they have won 16 consecutive Test series at home. The Indian team lost the last Test series at home when Sir Alastair Cook-led team won by 2-1 in 2012.
Meanwhile, Virat Kohli, who will miss the first two Test matches against England due to personal reasons, was head and shoulders above other Indian batters on the recent tour of South Africa. Kohli scored 172 runs in two Test matches at an average of 43 but the rest of the batters failed to contribute to the team.
“India want to be dominant at home, so they want to just keep producing turning pitches. But I think this Indian team is better than that. They can win on flat pitches in India, which in turn will make their batters better players overseas. But because they are always playing on turning pitches at home, when they go overseas, they haven’t got the technique to survive. And that’s why in South Africa, there was a massive gap between Virat Kohli and the rest of the batters, in terms of technique and application,” Monty Panesar said in an interview with Sportskeeda.
Panesar added that if India keeps playing on turning pitches in their home conditions, their batters won’t develop other skills and thus they will always be challenged while playing overseas.
“If you are going to keep playing on turning pitches, you are going to have your number on it and you are eventually going to get out. So you have to always attack and, when you do that, you aren’t really working hard on your footwork or the other batting skills. And I think it’s having an impact on Indian batting now. So they’ve got to be a little more confident. Rohit Sharma needs to think, ‘I want to challenge myself. Can I as captain win in India on flat pitches?’ But I’m afraid, the dominance of winning is more important than development of Indian batters,” the 41-year-old added.
On the other hand, England are playing a solitary pacer in Mark Wood in the opening Test. Panesar reckons Wood can trouble the young Indian batters with extra pace.
“They need pace in their attack. Because we’ve seen the younger batters in the Indian team struggle against pace. So early on, Mark Wood can make some inroads. The likes of Jaiswal, Gill, Shreyas Iyer struggle against pace,” he remarked.
England have got off to a quick start in the opening Test after winning the toss.
