Sourav Ganguly

Melbourne: Whether it’s the start of a year or its end, unbelievably, some things just don’t change for Team India.

At least in one respect, then, there’s consistency. But of a kind we could do without.

Indeed, 2007 began with a five-wicket loss at Newlands and ended with a morale-shattering 337-run rout at the MCG — third heaviest by way of runs.

Such was the humiliation in the opening Test of the four-match 3 mobile series that captain Anil Kumble was almost speechless. “Wish I knew what went wrong,” he said in an anguished tone.

“I’m not making excuses... The mental make-up of the batsmen needs to change,” Kumble, who suffered his first loss, added.

If the job had a honeymoon period, it ended all too abruptly.

Actually, even if the captain wanted to, he couldn’t have offered excuses. How many could he have given for one of the most pathetic displays by such an experienced (and, on paper certainly, awesome) line-up?

If scoring only 196 in the first innings wasn’t bad enough, the Indians managed no more than 161 in the second, reducing the highly-billed Boxing Day Test to a one-sided affair.

The knockout punch came early: More than a day remained when Mitchell Johnson fired out Rudra Pratap Singh for Australia’s 15th consecutive win. A repeat in Sydney will make Ricky Ponting’s men equal the feat achieved under Steve Waugh.

“We’ve probably not played better in such conditions... The wicket was more like a subcontinental one, but we stuck to plans... It was the toughest wicket I’d played on at home... I’d expected the cricket to be hard (on the fourth day), but it wasn’t so,” remarked Ponting.

He lauded openers Matthew Hayden (MoM despite a back problem) and Phil Jaques for their agenda-setting 135 runs partnership in the first innings and also praised his bowlers, led by Brett Lee.

Asked if the Indians lost it more in the mind, Ponting replied: “I think they lost it on the second morning... At stumps on the first day, when we were 337 for nine, it had been 50-50...”

Ponting maintained that, this time, his team didn’t “blast the opposition out,” but the fact is that the Australians were aggressive in everything. The manner in which they choked the Indian batsmen was especially mind-boggling.

Adam Gilchrist, who went past Ian Healy’s Australia record of 395 victims (and raised $1,44,000 for the McGrath Foundation through eight dismissals), summed it up perfectly: “It was high quality suffocating bowling...”

It’s a matter of debate whether the scars of this defeat will heal well before the series ends. Or, perhaps, it’s not.

There’s no point criticising Rahul Dravid’s promotion as, otherwise, Yuvraj Singh wouldn’t have made the XI. It’s another matter that both flopped in embarrassing fashion.

But, then, even specialist opener Wasim Jaffer cut a sorry figure and somebody like Mahendra Singh Dhoni made no impact in his first Test on Australian soil.

As Kumble pointed out, it was a “collective” failure and the batsmen, one learns, did a post-mortem soon after the loss.

“One didn’t expect such poor batting, but the good thing is that the batters realise where they went wrong... They didn’t play their normal game... I’m sure they’ll produce a much better performance in the next Test,” cricket manager Lalchand Rajput told The Telegraph.

Sourav Ganguly, incidentally, emerged as India’s highest scorer — 83, with scores of 43 and 40 — in his 100th Test. The runs took him past 1,100 for the year and placed him at No.2, behind Protean Jacques Kallis.

The second Test, at the SCG, is from Wednesday. The Indians leave for Sydney on Monday afternoon.

Footnote: The Board secretary, Niranjan Shah, is of the opinion that the tax dispute will be amicably resolved by “January 7-8.”