Hubris in Bengaluru

It all began with a touch of hubris: skipper Rohit Sharma’s decision to bat first after winning the toss under dark, low-hanging clouds in rainy Bengaluru on 16 October. It reeked of over-confidence and underestimation of the Kiwi pace attack. India lacked the flexibility to change their usual playbook, despite New Zealand’s eagerness to make first use of the conditions in Bengaluru.  

Incessant rain had kept the ground under covers and even washed out the first day’s play. Yet, India picked three spinners for the match and chose to bat first, denying their world-beating fast bowler, Jasprit Bumrah, the opportunity to bowl in perfect conditions for seam bowling.

Despite the much-touted sub-air drainage system in Bengaluru, that can magically suck up the rain, the humid atmosphere and lack of exposure to the sun made it a sticky wicket. The tall Kiwi pacers were super accurate and made the ball bounce and deviate off the surface. Sharma himself perished in his desperate attempt to come down the wicket and hit Tim Southee off his length. That started the Indian collapse to 46 all out, their lowest Test total at home.

Faulty tactics compounded the debacle as India allowed New Zealand to pile up a 356-run lead after reducing them to 233/7. Sharma’s overuse of spin, instead of attacking with Bumrah, allowed Southee and Rachin Ravindra to put on a 137-run 8th wicket partnership. Later heroics by newbie Sarfaraz Khan, who made 150, and Rishabh Pant, who fell one run short of a century, could not dig India out of the crater their captain had dug.

Decline of Stalwarts

Predictably, the black soil pitch for the second Test in Pune was shorn of grass to make it spin-friendly. But it backfired because India’s batting stalwarts no longer participate in domestic cricket, which has atrophied their prowess against spin. This was evident in India’s 2-0 ODI series loss on turners in Sri Lanka in August.

Virat Kohli exemplifies this decline. His dismissal in both innings of the Pune Test, playing across the line to left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner, marked 22 flops against spin in 27 innings on Asian soil since 2021. 

Even his overall Test form has been well below par. He has averaged below 30 in Tests every year since 2020, except for a brief revival in 2023, which included 186 in a drawn game on a flat pitch in Ahmedabad. The only other century Kohli made in this five-year period was also in a drawn game in the West Indies.

Rohit Sharma has performed a little better than Kohli, but his loss of form at age 37 is palpable too. He has averaged 31 in 19 innings this year, which is 12 points below his career average of 43.

The younger batsmen are more enterprising, but they too have become vulnerable after a surfeit of T20 cricket, unable to find the right balance between attack and defence in Test cricket. Most telling was their lack of footwork to challenge the spinners on a turning track. 

But it’s not just the batting that let India down. The much-vaunted spin attack was off colour. Left-arm leg-spinner Kuldeep Yadav wasn’t his usual self in Bengaluru, albeit on a surface with no turn. That he has been left out of the forthcoming Australia tour because of a persistent groin injury explains his struggle.

Yadav’s replacement in Pune, off-spinner Washington Sundar, bowled perfectly for returns of 11 wickets for 115 runs in his comeback match after a gap of over three years. But India’s ace spin duo of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja wilted under the attacking mindset of New Zealand. They have bailed India out time and again since 2012, but failed to adapt to the Kiwi tactics. This was the last straw that broke India’s back.

Spin Duo’s Downfall

It’s rare for left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja to go wicketless on a spin-friendly track at home as he did in the first innings in Pune. That his Kiwi counterpart Santner had a career-best 7/53 right after that rubbed salt into the wound. 

As commentator Murali Karthik pointed out, the ideal pace for a spinner was 85-90 kmph to get appreciable turn on the Pune wicket, which wasn’t a rank turner although it aided spin. Jadeja’s formulaic 95-kmph darters made it easier for the Kiwi batsmen to defend or pick off singles from sweeps.

Santner, on the other hand, mixed up slow flighted deliveries with quicker, flatter ones, keeping the Indian batsmen guessing. The Indians’ reluctance to use their feet helped the Kiwi spinner take 13 wickets in the match after getting only a solitary wicket in two Tests in Sri Lanka earlier.

Ashwin did flight the ball from time to time but the Kiwis were determined to come down the wicket and attack him whenever they could. This upset his usual line, length, and rhythm. 

Contrast that with the way Shubman Gill tackled Santner in Pune. He did force the left-arm spinner to bowl flatter when he used his feet, but surprisingly reverted to front foot defence and perished in both innings after getting to 23 and 30.

The Way Forward

Failure is often a better teacher than success. Indian fans will hope that the series loss to New Zealand will prod the home team to improve their tactics for the ongoing final Test in Mumbai. Perhaps 12 years of winning in India had lulled the Indians into complacency, brushing faults under the carpet. 

The declining form of senior batsmen and an ageing spin duo cannot be ignored for long, going forward. There’s no dearth of talented batsmen who can gain from the international exposure they can get as replacements for Kohli and Sharma.

Washington Sundar’s performance in Pune has already shown that it can’t hurt to look beyond Ashwin and Jadeja too. It’s surprising that Axar Patel, a like-for-like replacement for Jadeja, finds no place in the Indian squad for Australia. 

Rohit Sharma said he did not want to do a post-mortem after the series loss, which had come after 18 series wins at home. What he left unsaid is that India’s performances of late have depended on batsmen like Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill bailing them out. How long can his own underperformance and that of Kohli be hidden?

Sumit Chakraberty is a writer based in Bengaluru.

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