The dust bowls that once enmeshed many a mighty visitor in a cobweb of spin have turned into Team India’s Waterloo.
For decades, overseas cricketers have derided India’s turning tracks that they said worked to the home team’s advantage. Now, the same pitches have exposed the current crop of Indian cricketers’ own inadequacies with the home team facing routs against New Zealand first and now South Africa.
A team that had gone unbeaten at home for 12 years has now been whitewashed in two of its last three series in India within a span of 12 months.
Gautam Gambhir’s Team India has failed miserably in every aspect of the game. If New Zealand spinners Ajaz Patel and Mitchell Santner snared 28 wickets in three Tests earlier this year to dismantle India’s pride, South African tweaker Simon Harmer alone took 17 in the two-match series that ended on Wednesday, ably supported by Keshav Maharaj who bagged six wickets.
India’s 408-run drubbing in Guwahati is its worst in terms of defeat margin. India’s 201 in the first innings is the only time the team crossed 200 in the series.
Steve Waugh had called India the “final frontier” when he launched a vehement bid to breach the fortress in 2001 but failed. Times have changed and what was once considered impossible is now being achieved with impetuous regularity.
Muddled thinking of the team management, constant chopping and changing of the batting order, sacrificing specialists for all-rounders and the batters’ inability to cope with the turn have led to the dominant home record lying in tatters.
Minutes after India had lost the opening Test at Eden Gardens, former England captain Kevin Pietersen had laid bare the truth in a no-holds-barred social media post.
“Seeing the wicket first and then the scores and then the result in Kolkata, it can only be put down to batters modern day techniques. Batters grow up now to hit
sixes and play switch-hits. They don’t grow up to build an innings and learn the art of survival...” he wrote on X.
It’s no more about the grind in domestic cricket that earns a player a Test cap but how he fares in the IPL that decides his career. Nitish Kumar Reddy has featured in only 36 first-class matches but has already played 10 Tests.
Sarfaraz Khan, in contrast, doesn’t get a look-in despite 60 first-class matches. He averages 110.47 in the last five years in first-class cricket and hasn’t even earned an India A call-up since the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in 2024-25 where he didn’t get a chance to bat.
It’s always about rewarding domestic performers in red-ball cricket. Under Rahul Dravid and Rohit Sharma, a similarly inexperienced middle order had achieved success against Ben Stokes’s England, winning the series 4-1 after losing the first Test.
But has enough care been taken to nurture youngsters on turning wickets at home? Ranji Trophy matches are regularly being played on green tops
now. Even the two ‘A’ matches against South Africa in Bengaluru in the lead-up to this series were played on wickets that helped the pacers.
“It’s all about the preparation. Our strategy is flawed and we are ill-prepared to play on spinning wickets,” said former India opener and national selector Devang Gandhi, who coached Delhi in 2023-24.
Providing security to the players also helps in bringing out their best. Sai Sudharsan had been promoted to the No.3 spot on the back of his perceived skills against spin but he was dropped in the very next game after he scored 87 against the West Indies at the Kotla.
Gambhir’s obduracy showed in the selection of both Reddy and Harshit Rana but they will take time to be Test-ready. They need to go back to the drawing board to sort out their application and temperament before returning to Test cricket.
Gambhir now has five defeats in nine home Tests, with his four victories coming against lower-ranked Bangladesh and West Indies. The head coach has tried to save his job by putting the ball in the BCCI’s court. Will the BCCI dare to act now that India have surrendered the “tigers at home” tag under Gambhir?
