Former India head coach Anil Kumble showed no mercy in criticising India’s shambolic batting performance in the recently concluded Test series against New Zealand. Kumble reckoned that the repeated top-order collapses throughout the series were the reason behind India incurring their first-ever whitewash on home soil (minimum of three matches), and called for the management and selectors to “sit and introspect” before they head to Australia for the Border-Gavaskar series later this month.
Having picked up the final New Zealand wicket early on Day 3 to set themselves a target of 147 on the spiteful Wankhede track, India were touted to get the consolation win day after suffering their first Test series defeat at home in 12 years. However, the home team batters collapsed to spin with Ajaz Patel, who took a five-wicket haul in the first innings, taking his match haul to nine wickets as India were left tottering at 92 for six at Lunch.
Rishabh Pant did offer some resistance against New Zealand tweakers, but Ajaz produced the killer blow shortly into the second session on Sunday, and the rest of the line-up crumbled within an hour with the Mumbai-born spinner, who picked up a record 10-wicket haul in an innings in his last trip to the city, completing a six-fer.
Speaking to JioCinema after the loss in the third Test, Kumble lambasted India’s choice of picking rank turners both in the second Test in Pune and in the Mumbai match, and rather hailed the Kiwis for countering both the pitches and the conditions across the three venues in the series to script the historic win. It was the first time ever where New Zealand won three Tests in a series, home or away, and the first three ever they have won three successive away Tests
“India need to introspect and then, you know, understand what kind of surfaces you need to play on as well. I think we spoke about it even in Pune before the start of the Test match itself. It was spin to win, but it’s certainly given New Zealand a chance to come out there and then do what they have done exceptionally well. Everybody has a good soft word and nice word about the Kiwis, but this was a performance where New Zealand dominated in the series. Yes, of course, the win was just by 25 runs, but the way they went about countering the pitches, the conditions, the bowling, and that’s what you need to give credit to New Zealand. Whereas India succumbed to all of those that I mentioned. I think the pitch got to the heads of the Indian batters. Of course, the quality of Indian spin vs the quality of New Zealand. I think we don’t even need to mention the kind of experienced bowling attack that India has,” he said.
‘Indian batters getting out to spinners is worrying’
In addition to the six batting collapses India suffered against New Zealand, Kumble reckoned that the bigger worrying fact was their struggle against spin. In the series, 37 wickets fell against spinners, with the home team averaging under 25 against the variety.
“The top order not even batting a session throughout the series, except for that one partnership in Bengaluru in the second innings. Other than that, you know, in five innings, to sort of just go through a batting lineup like the Indian batting lineup in one session certainly says a lot about the approach, the attitude, and of course, needs a lot of questioning and how you could come out of this. A lot of concerns for India just before the quadrant,” he said.
“If on these pitches, if Indian batting is constantly getting out to spinners and you’re not able to sort of look to play a session, then it becomes really worrying.”
In the wake of the poor batting show, the legendary off-spinner called for an “introspection.”
“Whenever the spinners come on it’s not that there’s been an improvement from one game to the other. Yes, a couple of them have made certain adjustments and that certainly helped in the batting lineup. Still, collectively I think as a batting unit they have not been able to come out of those collapses that we just spoke about you know in a session to get bowled out losing five wickets, six wickets in a session that’s happened far too often for this lineup to sit down and say look there’s nothing wrong I think there’s something seriously wrong when you introspect I think the most difficult part is to accept that there’s a problem. I’m sure this Indian team when they sit down and introspect they will have to understand that there is a serious problem that they need to look into and I’m sure we’ll talk a lot more about that but right now it’s New Zealand’s time because they’ve achieved the impossible it’s time for the.”
