Mumbai: India have lost six of their last eight Tests; they were saved by the weather in Brisbane while the Perth Test win was the only bright spot. The string of losses in Australia followed the mauling against New Zealand at home. As serial losses of importance go, these rank as poorly as India’s eight losses in 11 Tests in 2011-12 (four each in England and Australia).
Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman did not play a Test after those Australia losses. R Ashwin called it a day in the middle of this Border-Gavaskar Trophy series and it is unlikely he will be alone after the 3-1 loss. Given the weight some of the big names carry, it’s equally unlikely that any decision will be taken without consulting BCCI officials.
The BCCI Special General Meeting on Sunday will see Devajit Saikia take charge as the new secretary. Even before he sits down with the team management and chief selector Ajit Agarkar for a series review, board officials have said not much can be read into Rohit Sharma’s “I am not going anywhere” comment in an interview to Star Sports during the SCG Test – he didn’t play the match – after media reports suggested he may have played his last Test.
While Rohit ‘stepped down’ from the Sydney Test is the official team line, his twin failures as opener in the fourth Test loss in Melbourne – it saw Shubman Gill dropped, KL Rahul demoted to No.3 and a back-up allrounder included as batting cover – is more the reason that pushed the skipper out of the playing eleven. Rohit’s ultra-aggressive batting methods had flopped against New Zealand and a more measured approach in Australia only gave him a batting average of 6.20.
“Rohit was waiting to see if India could find an escape route to the WTC final. Now, it’s really up to him whether to continue to fight for a spot,” said a BCCI official, who did not wish to be identified. “But the decision will be down to Ajit Agarkar and his selection committee.”
The dust would have settled by the time India play their next Test series, in England five months from now. By then a surfeit of white-ball cricket might have helped paper over the cracks, but the falling graph in Test cricket demands a thorough appraisal.
A key note from the series review following the 0-3 rout against the Kiwis was for the team management and selectors to be more in sync. Green horn Harshit Rana starting as the preferred pacer over Prasidh Krishna, who had delivered the goods in the pre-series tour game, taking two Tests to realise that Ravindra Jadeja should be first-choice spinner, and the blunder of picking two spinners on a pace-friendly Sydney pitch instead of adding an extra pacer in the final Test of a long tour with Jasprit Bumrah overworked showed the team management in poor light.
Whether these tactical errors are down to head coach Gautam Gambhir or the captain, or the absence of common ground between the two, or a lacuna in communication between the them and the selectors are all matters of scrutiny.
“It’s not just the tour of Australia. The decision to go for rank turners at home and then failing to deliver was the first blow that pushed India back in the race to WTC finals,” the board official said. After the loss to the Kiwis, some selectors had claimed in private that they had “no role” to play in the choice of pitches.
This brings Gambhir’s role under the lens. Many of his white-ball tactics have failed in Tests. India also began under Gambhir with the ODI series loss in Sri Lanka. There’s a lot riding on the next round of ODIs, beginning with the upcoming home matches against England, followed by the ICC Champions Trophy in February-March.
Gambhir is BCCI’s choice till 2027, but there is growing desperation for his methods to work.
