There is a lot to admire in the Indian Test team — many of the players have been part of the journey in which the team has genuinely challenged away from home, and made back-to-back World Test Championship (WTC) finals — but there comes a point in the life of every outfit when a big reset is in order. The meek surrender at The Oval last week should be a stark reminder that Team India need a new structure now, and the pillars that helped erect the previous one need to be replaced.
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The Indian selectors (yes, they exist, so what if they don’t have a chairman) have to look at the bigger picture and take some tough calls. They need to back their hunches, go out on a limb.
The final day of the 2023 WTC final showed that India have stagnated, if not deteriorated. This is the same set of batters that played the WTC 2021 final against New Zealand. Back then, they had to bat out time on Day 6 but folded from 64/2 overnight to 170 all out. In London, too, a similar collapse happened. And the sameness sparked an important question: Are Rohit Sharma & Co stuck at the same level as before, or have they gotten worse?
This isn’t about Rohit Sharma’s captaincy or Virat Kohli’s errant drive or Cheteshwar Pujara’s flailing determination or Ajinkya Rahane’s inability to convert. It’s about pre-empting the march of time and figuring out whether these seniors, all stalwarts and great servants of Indian cricket, will genuinely be our best bets in two years when the WTC final is played at Lord’s. Next time, will they even make it?
{{/usCountry}}This isn’t about Rohit Sharma’s captaincy or Virat Kohli’s errant drive or Cheteshwar Pujara’s flailing determination or Ajinkya Rahane’s inability to convert. It’s about pre-empting the march of time and figuring out whether these seniors, all stalwarts and great servants of Indian cricket, will genuinely be our best bets in two years when the WTC final is played at Lord’s. Next time, will they even make it?
{{/usCountry}}This isn’t just an age argument. But at a time when the top order has consistently failed, it is hard to imagine that the Indian cricket scene, brimming with talent, can’t find replacements. After all, Yashasvi Jaiswal is knocking on the door, Ruturaj Gaikwad has done the rounds, Abhimanyu Easwaran is in the mix, and Devdutt Padikkal is calling; and this is just the tip of the talent mountain.
The most important route to finding replacements is blood them at the highest level. But how will that happen unless the selectors look beyond the seniors?
The decision by the team management to tell wicket-keeper Wriddhiman Saha that he wouldn’t be considered for the Indian team anymore was the right one. Of course, Saha was never as big a star as the senior batters mentioned above; and it was relatively easy to have that conversation with him also because Rishabh Pant had found his feet at the international level. Still, the plan and the method were right.
Coach Rahul Dravid now needs to have a similar conversation with some of the members of the senior group, and if he can’t, then the selectors need to step in.
And, to make matters inexplicably worse, the one member in the senior group who should have been a shoe-in by the same logic that was applied for the batters, world No. 1 bowler R Ashwin, was left out.
Even Sachin Tendulkar, who usually avoids getting drawn into public comments about the team, questioned the move. “...I fail to understand the exclusion of @ashwinravi99 in the playing XI, who is currently the number one Test bowler in the world. Like I had mentioned before the match, skilful spinners don’t always rely on turning tracks, they use drift in the air and bounce off the surface to disguise their variations. Not to forget, Australia had 5 left-handers out of their top 8 batters,” Tendulkar tweeted, raising an important point about team selection.
But, all in all, It’s important to ask: What has the two-year WTC cycle taught India? Are they any wiser about the way forward? Have they identified their deficiencies?
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It’s clear that the batting unit is not able to do the job. India have needed the lower order to come to their rescue multiple times, and this lack of consistency can no longer be ignored. No matter how big and pedigreed a player may be, change is important for the greater good of the team.
Of course, there is the question of balance. The seniors cannot all be shunted out at the same time, but the process needs to begin. Dravid, if anything, knows this well.
While Ravi Shastri and Kohli were in charge of the senior team, Dravid, as the junior team’s coach, would make sure there was enough young talent in the pipeline. Are there suddenly no good enough replacements? Or are others blocking their path? The latter is more likely than the former. Something’s got to give.