Thaindian News

Roseau (Dominica), July 5 (IANS) India’s batting mainstay Rahul Dravid says the wickets in the West Indies are one of the toughest to bat on and it is difficult for the youngsters to adjust to them.

“It’s been tough for the batsmen. It’s not been easy for young batsmen to come in and face the new ball on these tracks. I have played four tours here and these have been some of the toughest tracks I have faced,” Dravid said ahead of the third and final Test here.

India lead the three-Test series 1-0 heading in to the final match. The visitors have failed to score posted 300-plus in any of the four innings so far.

Dravid is the top scorer in the series with 212 runs from four innings which includes a century.

“The guys will learn a lot from this experience. It will hold them in good stead. As I was telling some of them they probably might not play on these kinds of tracks elsewhere.”

Youngsters like Virat Kohli, Murali Vijay and Abhinav Mukund have found the going difficult on the tour.

“The tracks have been slightly tilted towards the bowlers, which is good. The West Indies bowling has been good. From that perspective, we have been challenged in this series and that has been good. People might say the batting hasn’t fired but in the context of the series, we have not done too badly.

“The tracks have had pace and bounce compared to the tracks they played in the ODIs and tracks we played last time. If not for rain in Barbados, we would have had two results.”

Dravid picked Ishant Sharma’s performance as one of the positives of the series.

“Ishant has been sensational. Praveen Kumar, Harbhajan Singh, Abhimanyu Mithun and Amit Mishra all have done their job. The slip catching has been good.”

Dravid said India would go into the final Test in Dominica with a winning mindset.

“We are not worrying about the series. We’ve got the team to win this Test match. We would have liked to win the series in Barbados. This is a good chance to win a series here again.”