India head coach Gautam Gambhir blamed rise of T20 cricket for the poor defence of Indian batters in recent times. Notably, the famed Indian batting line up was brought down to their knees in the second Test against New Zealand at Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Pune as the Blackcaps won the match by 113 runs and handed India their first series defeat at home since 2012.

Indian batters looked clueless against spin as left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner registered his career-best figures of 13/157 and bamboozled the hosts in their own den. Even senior players such as Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma had no answer to Santner’s variations who spun New Zealand to their historic maiden Test series win in India.

Recently, Gambhir opened up on India’s glaring weakness against spin in recent times and blamed T20 cricket for their poor defence while facing spin. However, the India head coach stressed on the importance of good defence and said that the team is working towards it and the results will follow in future.

“The more the T20 cricket is played (around the world), the more the people will struggle in defending. But the most successful players irrespective of the formats always had strong defence. We need to keep telling people the importance of defence and we are working hard on it and we will see results in future,” said Gambhir in the pre-match press conference.

“Sometimes you’re so used to muscling the ball that you end up forgetting the soft hands which probably used to happen eight or 10 years back. A complete cricketer is a cricketer who plays T20 format and Test cricket successfully. He can adapt his game.”But you will see probably going forward in future, we’ll have the same issues with a lot of other teams as well because the more the T20 cricket is played, the lesser people will start defending,” he added.

Indian batters experience massive dip in home averages

India’s weakness against spin has been highlighted time and again on home soil as spinners like Steve O’Keefe, Nathan Lyon, Tom Hartley and Todd Murphy have given them a run for their money in recent times. Their struggles against spin is highlighted in the dropping averages of some of their top players as captain Rohit Sharma’s home average has dropped from 88.33 till 2020 to 36.90 post 2021.

The same is the case with Virat Kohli (68.42 to 32.20), Cheteshwar Pujara (60.62 to 24.53), Ajinkya Rahane (39.28 to 18.87) and KL Rahul (44.25 to 29.33). Hence, India will need to put their demons against spin behind them as they take on New Zealand in the third and final Test at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai from November 1. The Rohit Sharma-led side will be desperate to win the third Test to avoid a whitewash and secure crucial points for the World Test Championship (WTC).