The sweepstakes that India missed

India’s grip at home is beginning to crumble. Australia warned us last year and because of that, the last Test at Ahmedabad was played on a road. England is now threatening to not only bang the door but to break the door completely. There is also a telling statistic. Kohli lost just 2 home Tests throughout his captaincy tenure whereas, Rohit Sharma has already lost 2 within the space of 12 months. As time goes by and with the imminent retirement of Kohli and Rohit and the inability of the youngsters, we the supporters will have to expect lot more days such as this. Let me analyse in the sweepstakes that India missed.

There were multiple reasons for the failure of the Indians to win the first Test. It is hard to pinpoint any one passage of play because the failure was all around. It wasn’t just a warning but an emphatic statement by Ben Stokes and the England team. They know that they have an inexperienced bowling attack and that they will be playing on spinning surfaces but they will not be afraid of shelving their approach and that they are here to compete.

First things first. Ollie Pope played an innings that I think he will find it hard to surpass in his entire career. The planning was good and the execution was perfect. He found good support among the bowlers who stood up to the challenge of Ashwin, Jadeja and Patel. It really was a shame that he couldn’t go onto a well deserved double hundred.

The youngsters are a worry

Shubman Gill and Jaiswal, on whom there is so much of expectation, looked all at sea when confronted with not even a lethal spin bowling attack. England has Tom Hartley who describes himself as a journeyman cricketer. He ends up running through the side. For Jaiswal atleast, this is only the 3^rd series of his career whereas, Shubman Gill has been around for awhile to understand international bowling. I am afraid that the more he plays, the more horrible his batting gets. He gives the impression of someone who is uninterested in the happenings on the field. Rather, he looks like someone who is contended by being somewhere else.

Ever since he made his debut, he has stopped playing in Ranji Trophy and thereby, his ability against spin, already limited as it is, has further diminished. Alongwith his unwillingness to be on the field and his lacklustre attitude, it is probably time to drop him from the squad and allow him to develop his batting away from international cricket. By continuing to be the in the squad, he is neither doing himself a favour nor the team. The absence of Kohli must have provided him a golden opportunity to play that innings and win the game and thereby make himself the undisputed replacement for Kohli. He couldn’t do that. Former Indian captain, Anil Kumble was scathing in his assessment of Gill. He said that Gill has been given a cushion that others weren’t given.

Dravid’s usual nonsense

Dravid also said that a majority of the batters in this India line-up were still learning the art of playing the long innings. “A lot of players are quite young, in the sense that a lot of these guys do play a lot of white-ball cricket and also maybe don’t get a lot of time to get to play a lot of first-class cricket as well. So they’re learning and I think they’re getting there.

I hope Dravid was in his senses when he uttered this statement. If the majority of the batsmen were still learning the art of playing the long innings, what were they even doing in the squad? What is their purpose? How is it that international cricket has become the learning ground and not the performing ground? Does Dravid even think when he speaks? I for one sincerely hoped that Dravid would resign or will not want to renew his contract after the ODI World Cup but I was absolutely flummoxed when he did so. For what? For us to hear such stupid arguments?

India cannot play spin

Over the last several years, it has become quite clear that Indians are not the same force they once were against spin. Quality spinners like Muralitharan and Warne were dealt with rather easily whereas, ordinary spinners like Panesar or Hartley or even Steven O Keefe reaped wickets against the Indians. Pitches that offer slow turn are the ones where the Indian batsmen have struggled since the turn of the millennium. It is so embarrassing to watch the Indian batsmen against spin.

They have become as poor as any in the game. There are a lot of Ranji players who have toiled hard on such surfaces. They have developed techniques to combat such pitches and bowlers. Unfortunately, they are not in contention because they do not set the IPL stakes on fire. These batsmen like Jaiswal, Gill and so many others are fast-tracked into the side based on some performances in the IPL. If IPL is the criterion, what is the point of the Ranji Trophy? Why do even have those games?

Ashwin and Jadeja

There is a reason Indian spinners are not considered that good. When compared to the likes of a Nathan Lyon or even Keshav Maharaj, the Indian spinners will rank very low. Ashwin and Jadeja have enjoyed a tremendous amount of success albeit on the rank-turners. That is a sad commentary of those spinners. Whenever there is turn but slow turn on the pitch, these two are not able to think the batsmen out. Their records are inflated because of such pitches when their calibre does not suggest that.

No planning against the sweep

It is known that England will be employing the sweep both conventional and the reverse to counter the spinners. This has happened in the past and yet, the team as a whole, did not seem to have worked on a counter strategy to defeat the sweep. Pope and the bowlers repeatedly did that and the Indian spinners remained clueless. The management led by Dravid must accept the blame for such shoddy performance of the bowlers. The batsmen, not entirely because the score was propped by a couple of bowlers, gave them a nice cushion but the lack of plan against the sweep was stark.

Wrapping up the sweepstakes that India missed

I just hope that the remaining pitches will not denigrate into dust-bowls. The Hyderabad pitch was good which helped the home team but they couldn’t make full use of it.