"We left 70 runs on the board in the first innings" - Rahul Dravid on India's batting performance in the opening Test defeat to England

Team India head coach Rahul Dravid defended the side's batting performance on Day 4 and instead focussed on the batters failing to capitalize on their starts in the first innings.

Despite scoring a formidable 436 in their first essay, as many as five batters crossed 40 without converting into three figures. While India still captured a 190-run lead, the missed opportunity to put more runs on the board proved costly as they failed to chase 231 in the final innings to lose by 28 runs.

While analyzing India's batting in the first Test at the post-match press conference, Dravid said:

"I won’t be so harsh to judge them today, and in fact, I think we left 70 runs on the board in the first innings. When the conditions were pretty good to bat on Day two, we got ourselves to good starts but didn’t capitalise. We didn’t have someone getting a hundred for us. The second innings is always going to be challenging. We got close, and we have to get better."

In the wake of England scoring a massive 420 in their second innings, India was under pressure to chase a challenging score on a wearing Hyderabad wicket.

No batter scored a half-century, with skipper Rohit Sharma's 39 being the highest score, as India fell to a 0-1 series deficit.

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"They don’t get a lot of time to play first-class cricket" - Rahul Dravid defends the young Indian batters

India v England - 1st Test Match: Day Four

When asked about the young Indian batters struggling to cope with the Hyderabad wicket, Rahul Dravid defended them by stating their lack of first-class cricket due to a packed white-ball schedule.

While Yashasvi Jaiswal scored a sparkling 80 off 74 in the first innings, he mustered only 15 in the second essay. However, India's massive cause of concern stemmed from the lack of runs from Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer in both innings.

The former continued his poor Test form with scores of 23 and 0, while Iyer managed 35 and 13 in the match.

"A lot of our players are young, and these guys play a lot of white-ball cricket, and they don’t get a lot of time to play first-class cricket. They are learning. It wasn’t a flat wicket by any stretch of imagination, and it turned through the course of the game. It was a challenging wicket, and it’s been a challenge for some of our young batters to adapt, but they are working hard, and they have the skill and ability," said Dravid.

He added:

"They have come here by scoring a lot of runs in domestic cricket and doing well in A-team cricket, and they are picked of merit. It is not that we are picking people out of nowhere, and sometimes it takes a bit of time for people to adjust."

India was without either of the three batting stalwarts Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara, and Ajinkya Rahane for the first time in a Test since November 2011. The trio's absence revealed itself as the hosts struggled to absorb pressure and produced substantial scores against an inexperienced English spin attack.

They will look to right the wrong in the second Test at Visakhapatnam, starting February 2.