Former captain Rahul Dravid believes young Indian batsmen need to learn the art of rotating the strike and not just look to play the big shots against spinners to succeed in Tests.

India lost the first Test against Sri Lanka at Galle chasing 176 as they were bogged down by the hosts’ spinners. Dravid feels they need to play the attritional game every now and then to ease the pressure.

“In terms of shot making ability against spin, this generation is incredible,” Dravid was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo. “The shots they play against spin like stepping out and hitting sixes, and some of the creativity is terrific.

“They have got that. One of the areas that could be a concern for Indian cricket is that there is a lack of balance; people are either defending or hitting big shots and it’s easy to set field to that as you can set in-out fields.”

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Dravid felt young batsmen either hit big shots or block the ball, which doesn’t always work.

“The ability to rotate the strike and construct a partnership when people have put men on the boundary line, and not hitting cover or point all the time, being able to hit to long-on or long-off and playing risk-free cricket… I think that’s a skill that needs to be worked on.

“A lot of the young batsmen are either defending or trying to hit big shots, and there is no in-between. That puts pressure on you because in a high-pressure situation, it becomes hard to play a really big shot and if you keep blocking balls, the pressure builds up on you,” he said.