Cricket is a team game and Australia played like one, under the stewardship of a captain, who led from the front, galvanised his unit and marshalled his resources towards the unified goal of winning back the Border-Gavaskar Trophy after a decade
India, on the other hand, were forced to play under three captains and chopped and changed their team reactively, without addressing the primary challenges at hand.
Barring the God-sent Bumrah and the spirited Yashasvi Jaiswal, no other Indian player consistently showed up to the party Down Under. Rohit Sharma did the brave and selfless thing by standing down for the ultimate test and one must laud his candour but in hindsight, did we hurt our chances by disturbing our winning combination at Perth?
Prior to this series, India had won at Perth only once and had won a series opener in Australia only once in 2018, but had never won a series opener at Perth, that too by a mammoth margin of 295 runs.
The D/N Test in Adelaide was always going to be tricky for the visitors given that we hardly play with the pink ball. India had two batting collapses there, instead of one at Perth, thanks to the merciless attack from Starc, Cummins and Boland. On the batting front, it was a Travis Head show, who capitalised on the two dropped chances.
After the two matches, one could clearly see the gulf in the approach to captaincy as well – Bumrah was far more aggressive, agile and creative in his approach, both in terms of team selection, field setting and bowling changes.
By this juncture, it was clearly evident that our top and middle-order had become synonymous to batting collapses, with our team folding up below 200 on 24 occasions in the last 5 years, 13 off which have come in the last two years. That is nearly about 1 in 3 times they come out to bat.
At the heart of the issue was Rohit, Virat Kohli and Shubman Gill’s inability to lay a foundation for a solid total, especially when they had looked past Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane for reasons pertaining to performance, age and succession planning.
From 55 at its peak, Kohli’s career average has slipped down below 47. In the last 5 years, he is scoring just about 30 runs per innings every year, way below par in comparison to his maximum averages of nearly 76 in two consecutive years in 2016 and 2017.
Barring the solitary, hard-fought ton at Perth, his batting approach has become synonymous to being a ‘chase master’, a phrase that was once attributed to him in a positive connotation for the manner in which he dominated match-winning chases, especially in the shorter format of the game.
Not only does he share the dubious distinction of 10 single-digital dismissals for a top 7 batter in a single Test season, along with Rohit, he now also tops the list of most caught dismissals to outside-off-stump deliveries versus pacers in a Test series; eight of them in this Border-Gavaskar Trophy. He managed to score just 69 runs in 9 innings at an average of 8.6 against those deliveries.
His catching is also slipping for over the last couple of years, wherein he drops more than 1 in 3 chances, the highest amongst slip fielders globally.
He may still be one of the fittest Indian cricketers to be around, but fortunately or unfortunately, six packs matter little in cricket. Hand-eye coordination counts for more and either age is catching up, as it does with everyone, or is it a function of match practice?
To me, it is unpardonable that the two legends in Kohli and Rohit haven’t played a Ranji Trophy match since 2012 and 2015 respectively. Not only does it not help their Test cricket but also sends out wrong signals and sets wrong precedent.
If not, give up their spots to the next generation of players like Abhimanyu Easwaran, Devdutt Padikkal, Sarfaraz Khan, Sai Sudarshan, Dhruv Jurel etc, who spent most of the series warming benches and carrying drinks. The only way Rohit and Kohli can take forward their Test careers, is by re-igniting their love for the game in the domestic circuit.
It may be a tad bit late given their respective age, but that’s the only viable option, else it will hurt them, the team and us fans to see two of our heroes fade out as mere shadows of their great selves.
What was most disappointing though, was to see Gill’s lacklustre performance and the callous ways of his dismissals.
For a gifted batter like him, who is touted to be the future of Indian batting, he has averaged just 32 over the last 5 years. Barring the heroic 91 at the Gabba in 2021, he averages a modest 23.8 overseas, with just one century outside Indian soil, in Bangladesh.
Beyond the lack of runs, the way he gave up his wickets at Sydney on both occasions, is the larger cause of worry. Shouldn’t there be a massive price to the wicket of a number 3 Test batter and more accountability?
We saw flashes of brilliance from KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant, R Jadeja, Washington Sundar and of course the young Nitish Reddy, but none of them could consistently win or save matches for us. Remember, cricket is a team game, where individuals have to rise and shine to help the collective succeed.
In fact, questions will be asked about the roles, positions and approaches of the above players. Isn’t Pant better off being completely unshackled, even at the cost of looking silly and stupid, because perhaps his approach to being responsible is different? I believe every 3-4 matches, he will produce a match/series-turning performance that no one in this team has the ability to do.
What is the future of Jadeja? Is he still capable of giving us wickets or do we need to invest in the likes of Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Manav Suthar or Tanush Kotian for future tours?
Who in this current team will have the role of blunting the new ball ala Dravid and Pujara by facing 100 odd deliveries, so that others can capitalise? Will Rahul be up for that role given his control to defend and leave?
If Washington is hardly going to be bowled, why not pick another bowler or open the slot for a better batter? Is Nitish the genuine wicket-taking bowling all-rounder that the team needs or will be competing for a top 5 batting position given his century at the MCG?