Indian pace bowler Prasidh Krishna talked at length about the atmosphere within the Team India dressing room following their painful defeat against England. Shubman Gill-led side suffered a five-wicket loss to Ben Stokes' England in Headingley which put them 0-1 trailing in the five-match series. The pitch at Headingley for the first Test was conducive to batting, allowing batsmen from both India and England to score a significant number of runs.
In the first innings, India's bowling attack was spearheaded by Jasprit Bumrah, who delivered an exceptional performance by taking a fiery fifer. However, he did not receive enough support from the other bowlers. While Bumrah managed to keep the English batsmen from scoring rapidly and also took crucial wickets, his fellow teammates struggled to provide the necessary support at the other end.
Although Prasidh Krishna managed to take three wickets in the innings, his bowling proved to be quite expensive, as he conceded 128 runs in his 20 overs at an economy rate of 6.40. Mohammed Siraj also contributed with two wickets. In the second innings, the English batsmen successfully countered the threat posed by Bumrah while chasing a target of 371 runs.
The dressing room is still positive, happy, and very, very motivated: Prasidh Krishna
During the defense of their total in the second innings, premier fast bowlers Bumrah and Siraj both went without taking any wickets. While Prasidh (2/92), Shardul Thakur (51/2), and Ravindra Jadeja (1/104) did manage to pick up wickets, their bowling was generally expensive.
Meanwhile, in the lead-up to the second Test against England, Prasidh Krishna revealed the mood and culture of Indian dressing room in the press conference on June 28. He stated that the players are constantly learning from each other, and that the experienced pace bowler Jasprit Bumrah has been actively engaging in conversations with everyone in the team.
"What a culture we guys have created. We are learning from each other, no matter who's there or who's around. And with Booms (Bumrah) around, he's been talking to all of us throughout, even before coming here. At least for me, I've been part of this team for a few years now, so the conversations are still going on. One thing you cannot get is experience — you have to go through it yourself. And yeah, I think all of us are excited," Prasidh said in the press conference.
"If you look at the team, everybody is here. Siraj has played a lot of games, he's going to continue playing, and whoever comes in — or whatever happens later — it's a great experience and an opportunity. That’s the way we look at it," he added.
Prasidh also conveyed that the atmosphere in the dressing room remains positive, with every member of the team motivated to perform at their highest level for the side.
"The dressing room is still positive, happy, and very, very motivated. Like I said, we came here knowing what this opportunity meant for all of us. And even in the game today, we might have looked quiet at times, but I think we still had a plan. We wanted to do something, and we went about doing it — we got two wickets in a cluster, twice. So that kept the motivation going. And then, you know, as a bowling unit, when something's happening, we still ended up taking the new ball. They needed about 20 runs, but we held on to the hope that something might happen. So we were still out there believing. We made sure that until the last run was scored, we were still fighting and making them work hard for it," the 29-year-old pacer concluded.