As the Indian team hopes to bounce back from the morale-crushing 28-run loss in the opening Test, the home side will also have to deal with the dual blows of KL Rahul and Ravindra Jadeja being ruled out of the second Test against England, starting in Vizag from Friday.

As a result, India’s batting will mainly revolve around the contributions from Shubman Gill, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shreyas Iyer, along with skipper Rohit Sharma, in their quest for a win.

India’s batting coach Vikram Rathour believes the likes of Shubman and Shreyas deserve patience amid their current poor run while urging his wards to tackle England’s aggression with intelligence.

“There are young batters in our team who have not played much Test cricket. 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 said at a press conference here.

Although Jaiswal played a knock of 80 in the first innings of his fifth Test, Gill and Iyer failed to fire, continuing their struggles in the format.

While Gill has played 21 Tests, Iyer has appeared in 13 five-day games. Gill hasn’t scored a 50 in his last nine Test innings. Iyer has been similarly off-colour.

Rathour said he expects better application from the side’s batters in the second Test where the home team will once again miss the services of the run machine Virat Kohli. “There’s a difference between playing with intent and playing attacking cricket. I want them to play with intent. If there is the opportunity to score some runs, they should take it,” he added.

“They need to decide by looking at the surface and conditions. So, the batters need to possess that intelligence as to which is the best or safest shot on the surface,” he explained.

Analysing India’s batting performance in the second innings of the Hyderabad Test, Rathour said the batters probably lacked discipline. “Could they have batted with more discipline? Maybe they could have. That’s what they need to decide and come up with their plans,” he observed.

“But, they need to score runs by playing their shots, as you need to back your strengths. Batting is always about scoring runs. It’s not about not getting out but how many runs you put on the board,” he said.

Rathour also heaped praise on the English batters for playing brave cricket, especially Ollie Pope, effectively taking the game away from Rohit Sharma’s men. He, however, cleared that England’s strong showing has not put his team under any additional pressure.

“They (England) were brave. They took their chances, which worked for them. The kind of innings Pope played was exceptional. I haven’t seen too many playing such a knock against our bowling attack,” he said.

“I don’t think (there’s any pressure). We are expected to win while playing in India and the boys are used to that by now. “The message to them from the support staff is to play good cricket and not bother about results too much. The other teams also come well-prepared. Since we have won Test matches in Australia, England and South Africa, we also expect them to win a Test in India,” he said.