Blow-by-blow account of India’s disturbing decline in home Tests under Gautam Gambhir

Ah, here we go again. A little over a year ago, this felt like the most unusual of exercises. Dissecting an India home Test series defeat – one where they were thoroughly outplayed by New Zealand. Yet, it felt like an aberration. A once-in-a-decade occurrence.

There were reasons to believe so. India had gone 4,331 days (no, that is not a random number-lock combination) without being trumped in a home Test series. But turns out that India can lose home Test rubbers. In quick succession. Meaning that they have made history. Losing five home Tests out of seven for the first time in 66 years.

So, with another series disappointment to contend with, maybe it is worth jogging down memory lane, trying to figure out how it all unraveled so spectacularly at home. Because, well, why not.

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Bangladesh dispatched with ease

Gambhir’s tenure begins rather promisingly. Bangladesh have historically not posed a challenge on these shores, but India, especially at Kanpur, show they are willing to push boundaries.

Days two and three are rained out. But India respond with their version of Bazball (or Gamball or whatever you want to call it), forcing a result and sealing a 2-0 series victory. Home record maintained. Aura intact. Onto the next series, and possibly series win.

Kiwis say hello

Well, not quite. And this is where India’s frailties start being exposed. Day one of the series does not produce any cricket. India, confident and bullish after blasting their way past Bangladesh, opt to bat when the toss does happen a day later. They last all of 31.2 overs. For all of 46 runs. Overcast skies, yes, but still no justification to get bundled out that easily. Or cheaply.

India, to their credit, recover in their second innings, gaining a lead and setting New Zealand a tricky fourth-innings target. The damage, though, had been done. Not just in terms of the result, but also in India’s thinking.

Why? Because the slight assistance for pace scarred India’s think-tank so much that they decided to roll out raging turners in Pune and Mumbai. Gambhir, by virtue of being the head coach, will likely have had a role to play, but he could only watch in disbelief as New Zealand ripped India to shreds.

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Pitches supposed to aid India’s spinners, helped Ajaz Patel and Mitchell Santner. Neither could have envisioned the impact they went on to have. And most of India could not have envisaged India getting entangled in their own spin-web.

But still. Because India had hardly lost in the last twelve years, this series defeat was dubbed acceptable. Not by the majority of India’s fans. But by India’s captain himself. Who does retire from the format before India next play a home series. As does that guy who used to wear number 18 and batted at four. And that guy who took more than 500 Test wickets and scored more than 3500 runs – all by himself.

Hmm…

Cantering past West Indies

With all due respect to the Caribbean outfit, they are not the force they once were. Test cricket, in general, has taken a backseat in that region. Even if they do produce the odd sparkling performance (read Gabba 2024).

India seem to learn from their previous mishap against New Zealand. Both pitches they play on are true and good for batting, valuing bowlers’ ability to create openings through minimal help. India bat big. India’s bowlers strike big. India win big. Despite some big names having bid adieu to the format.

Simple enough story. Simple enough moral of the story too – of concentrating on beating the opposition through skill, rather than in a game of lottery.

South African humbling

If that was indeed the case, Gambhir most certainly missed the memo. The team management missed it too. Everyone missed it. Perhaps because of all the cricket and travel. Although energy spent on handshakes may not have been a factor.

Anyway, India dish out a crumbly, creaky, filled-with-cracks surface in Kolkata. This pitch, apparently, is what India wanted. At least that is what Gambhir quips. But it is also a surface that India’s batting coach, Sitanshu Kotak said India did not want, and that the only reason Gambhir said so was to shield the curator, who, as the penny dropped, was ultimately thrown to the wolves.

India’s combination is not up to scratch either in Kolkata. They stack their team with all-rounders. With excessive bowling options on a pitch that does not need too many bowlers. They have far fewer batters than would be deemed ideal. India lose.

This all-rounder ploy is not an outlier. In Australia, India did the exact same thing – Pack. The. Batting. Perhaps because there is not enough trust in designated batters to do the requisite heavy lifting. Either way, that leaves the bowling department short but hey, batting security above everything else. And all-rounders over specialists.

Even in England, in a series that India eventually drew, Kuldeep Yadav’s omission left a sour taste. Not because the ball was turning square, but because of how good he is, and because of how ordinary England usually are against wrist-spin. More so when deploying this devil-may-care approach they are currently deploying.

But anyway. Too much of conjecture. Into the here and now again. The dustbowl in Kolkata is replaced by something a little more docile in Guwahati. A road, as Kuldeep puts it. Unsure if India had a word with the curator this time. It does not matter, though. It does not matter an iota.

Because by now, India are battling ghosts inside their head. The pitch is just an accessory. South Africa are just abettors. India’s batting approach is so muddled that everyone seems to bat at a different position each innings. With a different role. With a lack of clarity on what to do, and more damningly, on what needs to be done. In an ideal world, this is guess-work designed to surprise the opposition; in the current scheme, it’s only leading to further confusion.

And so, here we are. Yet again. Just a year on from a series result India may have pledged to never contrive to repeat, but a result they have, through all their missteps, made a reality once more.

There will still be those who say Gambhir is not totally responsible. After all, you lose as a team and you win as a team, as he has been quick to point out in press conferences. But as he also said (after Guwahati), red-ball cricket is a different challenge. And that you need the toughest players rather than the most flamboyant ones. Even though he continues to ignore those racking up truckloads of runs in the domestic grind.

These fiery press conferences, mostly chaired by Gambhir, show him at his defiant best, as a coach should be to protect his players (and sometimes the curator too). Mixed signals, though, are also a feature.

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Which, in a nutshell, is what is plaguing India. They want to do something. They say they want to do something. But what they end up doing is, increasingly regularly, on a different plane. Not to mention that whenever India now rock up to play a home Test, they will have much more than the opposition and the conditions to contend with. As will Gambhir. Provided he is still at the helm then.

Quite often, Gambhir does resemble a person itching to create history and to throw the conventional playbook out of the window. The type of individual with the burning desire to do something no one before him ever has, and do something no one after him ever could.

Not entirely sure if this is the kind of history and record-making he would have bargained for, though. Because the Indian fans and similar such stakeholders certainly did not.