The Indian batsmen thoroughly dominated the England bowlers on the third day of the fourth Test at Kennington Oval but assistant coach Paul Collingwood has backed his bowlers and said that they were quite disciplined during the course.
"I thought we were very disciplined. Obviously, we've got accurate bowlers in our ranks; we stuck to our task all day," Collingwood said during the press conference.
The former England all-rounder further said that it was surprising that the Duke's ball lacked swing. "I think the one thing that was surprising was the lack of swing with the Dukes ball today [on Saturday].”
Collingwood lauded India opener Rohit Sharma for his performance with the bat. Sharma scored a ton in the second innings to help India take the first innings lead.
"He's got a different technique, and he's played really well so far in the series,” Collingwood said.
The home side faced some trouble during the fielding after the players dropped some catches in the middle. Mentioning about the same, Collingwood admitted that this is the department that needs some improvement.
"It's certainly been an area that we're trying to improve as a group,” he said.
"We're catching a lot of balls in practice, a lot of hard work goes into it, and the guys have just got to make sure that they're confident when they go out to field in the middle,” he further added.
Riding on Rohit’s ton and some responsible batting from KL Rahul and Cheteshwar Pujara, the visitors managed to nullify the lead that they had earlier conceded. India now lead by 171 runs and were 270/3 with captain Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja at the crease before the stumps were called on Day 3.