India need to put on 'team face' in Sydney to pull themselves out of mess of their own making

“We are going to have a look at the wicket and finalise it tomorrow” – Gautam Gambhir, India’s head coach , on being asked if he had a playing XI to announce for the final Test against Australia.

So far so good, pretty much in tune with the recent Indian policy of not naming their side until at the toss.

Then, a specific question pertaining to skipper Rohit Sharma, and whether he would play the next day. “I just said that we’re going to have a look at the wicket and announce a playing XI tomorrow. The answer remains the same.”

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With those two sentences, Gambhir set the cat amongst the pigeons. The expectation when the Indian coach turned up for Thursday afternoon’s press conference – his first interaction with the media since the team landed in Australia more than seven weeks ago – was that he would put out fires that have been raging since the so-called ‘leak’ of an alleged dressing down from him to the team after the MCG defeat on Monday .

Instead, the former India opener opened the doors to sustained speculation about whether the captain was dropping himself for a crucial game, with the series on the line and the Border-Gavaskar Trophy still to be won and lost.

Will Rohit play at Sydney?

It didn’t help that Rohit wasn’t among the first seven batters that hit the nets after a pre-training game of touch-football. Rohit wasn’t even to be seen when Ravindra Jadeja (first to arrive at the nets), KL Rahul, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant and Dhruv Jurel were facing bowlers of all ilk apart from Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj. It wasn’t until a good half-hour later that he joined the nets after a long chat with his deputy, and a further 45 minutes or so before he returned to face throwdowns.

Adding fuel to the fire were lengthy discussions between Gambhir and Bumrah, with chief selector Ajit Agarkar too in the mix. Will Rohit play, or won’t he? You’d think he should, his recent form notwithstanding, given the stakes involved. But fact is often stranger than fiction, isn’t it?

In so many ways, assuming Rohit plays – and truth to tell, there really shouldn’t have been any doubts on that front – so much hinges on the outcome for the skipper himself, for Gambhir, under mounting scrutiny after a string of underwhelming performances, and for Virat Kohli, the former skipper whose second-innings century in Perth is increasingly beginning to look like an aberration.

Rohit has been woefully short on runs and confidence, and perhaps some of that uncertainty has crept into his captaincy as well. Apart from the second innings in Melbourne, where he was his usual proactive self by pulling a string here, a chord there, he has appeared to let things drift a little, which isn’t typical Rohit.

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Even when nothing seems to be happening, Rohit has pulled a rabbit out of the hat numerous times in the past two and a half years. That Rohit has been largely MIA over the last three Tests, though the signs in both second innings at the MCG were a lot more promising. He was almost his old inventive, creative self in the field while with the bat, even though he made only nine, there were shades of the Rohit of 2021 in England, when he kept leaving balls outside off and forced the bowlers to bowl at him, at which point he picked them off with practiced ease.

Perth ton beginning to look like an aberration for the ‘King’

Kohli’s position might not look as tenuous as his successor’s and the unbeaten 100 in Perth might buy him more breathing room, but it can’t be denied that there is a definite pattern to his dismissals. Kohli has always been a man in a hurry but by and large, he has hurried on his own terms. On this tour, he is hurrying on Australia’s terms, and that’s hurting him and the side plenty. Innings after innings, he has been sucked into flirting with deliveries on the fifth and sixth stumps, with disastrous results. It’s almost as if when the carrot is dangled in that corridor, it’s only a matter of time before he has a nibble.

For someone who has made a huge name for himself owing to his self-discipline – such as his fastidious commitment to dietary and fitness requirements – to not be able to work out this crucial aspect that is holding him back as a batter is a massive surprise. Kohli is no victim of technical ineptitude; it’s his mind that is refusing to allow him to work at his optimal best.

Ravi Shastri, the former head coach with whom Kohli shares a fabulous relationship, is convinced his favourite ward will play ‘for another three or four years’. Maybe so, but only if he can excuse himself from wafts outside off. To keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect different outcomes each time is naïve; Kohli has been caught behind the stumps six times this series, more often than not reaching out to balls he can leave well alone. Course correction must be swift and sustained.

Gambhir stresses on “honesty”

As for Gambhir, it’s been a horror start to his tenure as head coach. India have lost five and won just three out of nine games under him – three of those defeats have come at home. It is being said that lines of communication between the coach and several of the players are a little blurred, and reports of a verbal lashing from Gambhir after the MCG final-down meltdown, among other more damning ones, have surfaced in the last couple of days.

Gambhir moved to quell that line of thinking, dismissing claims that he had a go at the team. “Those are just reports, that’s not the truth,” he said on Thursday afternoon. “I don’t think I need to answer to any reports, to be honest. There were some honest words, that’s all I can say. And honesty is very important. Honesty is extremely important if you want to probably go on and achieve some great things.”

Rishabh Pant’s ill-advised strokes in both innings – a scoop off Scott Boland when the field was in place for exactly that shot and a pull off Travis Head with a long-on in position – have reignited the natural game vs situational awareness debate. Gambhir minced no words when he remarked, “There is only one discussion – that it’s the team first. It’s the ‘team first’ ideology that matters. It’s a team sport and you’ve got to play what the team needs you to do. That’s as simple as it can get.

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“People can play their natural game. But in a team sport, individuals only contribute. You have to expect players to do what the team needs you to do – whether they got to bat sessions, whether they got to be attacking – because that is all that matters in a team sport.”

Little scope for ambiguity then. Team before self, as it should be. It’s a maxim as old as time itself. Now for India to put on their ‘team face’ and show the world what they are capable of, leaks or not.