Perfect start to total disaster: India suffer shambolic 3-1 loss
India lost the fifth Test against Australia by six wickets, marking a 3-1 series defeat, with poor batting and Bumrah's injury as key factors.
It was the sigh from the crowd that gave it away. From the moment it was revealed that the pacer had been laid low by a back spasm on Saturday to the moment when the players gathered in the team huddle on Sunday without him, the hope was that Jasprit Bumrah would somehow work another miracle for the Indian team.

But it wasn’t to be. The star of the series was unable to bowl a single over in Australia’s second innings as India lost the fifth Test by six wickets and their hold on the Border-Gavaskar Trophy for the first time in a decade. The 3-1 loss is a just reflection of how the series went.
Repeated batting troubles, lack of performances by skipper Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, being overtly reliant on Bumrah to bail them out of every situation, lack of communication between the head coach Gautam Gambhir and the senior players all contributed to the debacle.
Coming into the series on the back of a 3-0 home loss to New Zealand, India started this series better — carving out an incredible win at Perth after being bowled out for 150 in their first innings of the tour. That burst in the final session of Day 1 set Bumrah up for his greatest show in a Test series. It was meant to inspire the others into action too.
However, Adelaide saw a different Australia turn up. The local media had gone after them following the defeat in the first Test but they stayed calm and did not panic in the pink-ball Test.
From that point on, India were playing catch-up. Australia would sneak ahead and then, India would catch up. The series had that kind of rhythm and even though the Indian team keeps harping on how they had their moments, they were clearly second best.
Brisbane was saved thanks to a rearguard action by KL Rahul and Ravindra Jadeja. And it had taken a last-wicket stand to get past the follow-on mark. Melbourne required Nitish Reddy and Washington Sundar to help India recover and this was the regular theme for the team. The failure of the batting — especially in the first innings where they recorded scores of 150, 180, 260, 369 and 185 — hurt them badly.
“How many Indian players have scored centuries? Except for the first Test with two centuries, there is only the century of Nitish Kumar Reddy,” former India captain Sunil Gavaskar told Star Sports. “How many players made half-centuries? You can say it is not easy to hit a century, but how many players made half-centuries and tried to turn the match? It did not happen because the application that is required in Test cricket — the application and determination — was very low.”
The seniors were not contributing much in terms of runs or calm. Rohit’s struggles (31 runs at an average of 6.20) were so pronounced that the captain opted out of the final Test. Virat Kohli (190 runs at an average 23.75) seemed more interested in picking fights and shoulder charging the Aussies than doing the things that would actually hurt them.
Runs from the seniors would have helped but India also constantly made questionable selections. The batting line-up was a mess — Rohit, the regular opener, missed the first Test, then batted lower down the order for the second and third Tests because Rahul was doing well. But then inexplicably Rahul was moved out of the opening position in the fourth Test. And given that the batting was struggling, they also dropped the out of form Shubman Gill for the fourth Test before bringing him back into the 11 for the series decider for the more even more out of form Rohit. This was a campaign characterised by apprehension.
The bowling was no different. They started the series with Washington, then suddenly brought in R Ashwin for the second and Jadeja for the third Test. They also passed a message along to Ashwin that his services wouldn’t be considered for overseas games. Bumrah was the clear spearhead but who did he have around him? Mohammed Siraj, whose form has been poor for a while. Harshit Rana, who after a fine show in the first Test, was looking clearly second best to Akash Deep but still played at Adelaide. Deep gave it his best shot but he didn’t have luck and an injury to him saw Prasidh Krishna play the final Test. There was also a call to play six bowlers, including two spinners and an all-rounder who is still developing as a pacer, for the final Test.
And that is something the team management needs to answer for. Some players were clearly never going to be considered but they were part of the squad. It doesn’t help if you don’t have the right options.
“I think everything boils down to the temperament,” said Gambhir. “Everything boils down to how much you want to sometimes play those tough moments, how much you want to grind in Test cricket, because Test cricket is all about playing the sessions, sometimes seeing off the spell as well, and that is the beauty of the sport.
“Can we convert those 20s, 30s or 40s into big hundreds? Not only hundreds but big hundreds and set the game for our bowlers because your bowling department will always be under pressure if you can’t put those first innings runs on the board. So, that is something we need to look into.”
With an eye on the future, the next few months are going to be big for Team India. To navigate the transition, some tough calls will need to be made and they will have to be made while having a clear understanding that the needs of red-ball cricket are very different from the white-ball format.
Batting in Tests has never been more difficult and if India want to find success, they need players who will embrace the challenges of the five-day game rather than just try and hack their way past it.
