The turmoil brewing inside Team India's dressing room is more serious than first imagined. As it turns out, things have been on the slide not just after the defeat at Melbourne but even before the team landed in Australia ahead of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. To make matters worse, the growing tension between captain Rohit Sharma, head coach Gautam Gambhir and players is unknowingly leaving behind a scar that promises to hamper progress in the long run.
Where the previous regime of Rohit and Rahul Dravid stood out was communication. Players not in India's scheme of things were informed about their fate, something the Virat Kohli-Ravi Shastri era or the one before weren't good at. Who can forget how Wriddhiman Saha was informed that he was no longer needed for India and that the team is moving ahead with KS Bharat as the other specialist wicketkeeper after Rishabh Pant? Breaking the bad news is never easy, and not many know how to handle it, but Dravid mastered it. Even if it made him the villain, put him on the line of fire.
But with Rohit and Gambhir, Indian cricket seems to have gone back two years. When Shubman Gill was excluded from the Playing XI in Melbourne, and Ravichandran Ashwin watched Washington Sundar being picked ahead of him in Perth, these incidents marked the initial cracks in India's chain of communication. Sure, the captain and coach went on record to state that they've had a 'conversation', but Ashwin's surprise mid-series retirement and Gill's sullen face told an entirely different story.
Indian player distraught at lack of communication
"I bumped into a reserve in the Indian team at a kebab shop at 1:45 AM the night before one of the Tests. After making a point to explain why he needed the late-night meal, he went on to ask me if Rohit, the captain, had mentioned him to me at any point during the tour. He then went, 'Has Gauti [Gambhir] bhai said anything about me to you?' And the poor fellow cut a sullen figure as he then lowered his head and went, 'Nobody says anything to me. Not the captain or the coach. I don't know what's happening'," a report by a journalist in The Australian, read.
{{/usCountry}}"I bumped into a reserve in the Indian team at a kebab shop at 1:45 AM the night before one of the Tests. After making a point to explain why he needed the late-night meal, he went on to ask me if Rohit, the captain, had mentioned him to me at any point during the tour. He then went, 'Has Gauti [Gambhir] bhai said anything about me to you?' And the poor fellow cut a sullen figure as he then lowered his head and went, 'Nobody says anything to me. Not the captain or the coach. I don't know what's happening'," a report by a journalist in The Australian, read.
{{/usCountry}}The three reserve players on the tour are Mukesh Kumar, Navdeep Saini and Khaleel Ahmed. Out of the three, it is important to know that Saini was a part of the last Test series India played in Australia, while Mukesh has played three Tests himself.