Batters have to be better prepared in England next time, says Dravid

NEW DELHI, September 21 

Rahul Dravid, the last captain to lead India to a series win in England, says the current side faced unusually tough conditions in the recently concluded five-match rubber and the batsmen must prepare better before embarking on the next English tour.

“Let’s just be honest first. The conditions in England were not easy for batting. I think batsmen of both the teams struggled. If you take out Virat Kohli from the equation, it was not an easy series for the batsmen. I have played in England quite a bit, the conditions can be tough but it is rare to find five Test matches which had conditions as tough as the one they found,” Dravid said.

“The next time we go there, we have to be better prepared for these kind of conditions and try and replicate conditions as best as we possibly can,” said the Indian batting great.

Dravid, however, did not read much into Ravi Shastri’s  ‘best team ever’ remark. “I think the whole thing was blown out of proportion. I am not really interested in commenting on what Shastri feels or he doesn’t feel. For me, the main thing is what have we learnt from this series?  What are the lessons that we need to take forward next time we go there? It doesn’t matter whether we are the best or not. These are irrelevant things for me,” said the 45-year-old. — PTI

PUNJAB, HARYANA REGISTER WINS IN HAZARE TROPHY

• Chennai: Amit Mishra grabbed 6/13 to help Haryana beat Assam by eight wickets in their Vijay Hazare Trophy Group C encounter.
•  Brief Scores: Assam: 81 in 30.2 overs (Riyan Parag 24; Arun Chaprana 3/4, Amit Mishra 6/13) lost to Haryana: 83/2 in 11.2 overs (Shubham Rohilla 31*, Harshal Patel 37).
• Punjab: 278/7 in 50 overs (Gurkeerat Mann 85*, Yuvraj Singh 41; Srikant Wagh 3/69) bt Vidarbha: 137 all out in 40.5 overs (Ganesh Satish 60, Shrikant Wagh 33; Mandeep Singh 2/15) by 141 runs.
• J&K: 79 in 30 overs (Ahmad Omar Banday 24; Neelambuj Vats 3/17, Harmeet Singh 5/10) lost to Tripura: 81/6 in 30.5 overs (Nirupam Sen Choudhary 24). — PTI

Karun Nair to lead BP XI against Windies

New Delhi: Test batsman Karun Nair will lead the Board President’s XI that will play a two-day warm-up match in Vadodara from September 29 against the visiting West Indies side ahead of their two-Test series against India next month. The BP XI squad includes the likes of Prithvi Shaw, Shreyas Iyer, Mayank Agarwal and wicketkeeper-batsman Ishan Kishan among others. The West Indies will be in India for almost seven weeks, starting September 26. — pti