WTC’23- Reality Check For India In Test Cricket

With innumerable people chanting devotionally for their heroes at the loftiest stage of cricket, the Indian team never falls short to dishearten the biggest stakeholders of the game. Anguished fans have become sustained to sculpture their hearts with a well chiselled knife. Resembling the alike poles of a magnetic field, the ‘white collared stalwarts of the bilateral series’ slip with their drastic failure at crunch situations, yet again in ICC knockouts. Meanwhile,on the flip side, AUS make their trophy cabinet rather more claustrophobic with a beautiful silverware in grasp.

With the skipper ageing 36 and being cognisant of his fitness in the roughest format, India has failed in finding an able inheritor for Rohit. Injuries continue to traumatise as usual, with KL, Shreyas, Bumrah hovering themselves at the NCA with their dodgy athleticism.

The average of Top 4 of the test side in the last 3 years, baring Rohit, is no less than disgraceful. Gill, KL, Pujara and Kohli average 32,30,29 and 29 respectively. India has now been prominently known to make mine like strips in home games. The prolific top order is not even able to stamp their authority against greenhorn spinners like Leach, Murphy, Kuhnemann & Ajaz Patel. Having been pratfalled at Nagpur and Ahmedabad recently, the team management decides to platter a dreadful pitch to entangle the opposition with their spin attack. But in the larger scheme of things, when it comes to shielding the operational movement of the ball overseas, the batsmen breathe with the skin of their teeth.

The fast bowling unit is not grilled well at home, courtesy the perplexing spin movement in India. The undercooked pace attack seemed clueless in the Ultimate Test as well. There seems to be no like to like replacements for the pace battery too.

Dravid, the head coach, has disappointingly not been able to unearth a single global achievement till date. His controversial tactical theory boils the keen observers of the game, and makes the blemish Indian side bite the dust. Ashwin, who was a part of successive T-20 World cups recently, was excluded from the tests where he owns the hot seat. Unable to assess the conditions well, the best test spinner wasn’t an element against a side of 4 specialist lefties.

Seldomly taking a brave call last year against Lanka, the fragile management inserted Vihari and Iyer for Pujara and Rahane. With the formers getting injured, the abstracted selectors relocked the veteran duo. Gritty talents like Easwaran, Sarfaraz, Priyank Panchal and Arpit Vasavada unanticipatedly get slapped despite scorching their scoresheets at the domestic level. The BCCI lacks farsightedness which aptly makes them impoverished for an ICC trophy.

Having been perished against AUS, SA, ENG, and at the WTC Finals, the batting coach needs to be held accountable for the blunderous display of skills. Bowling coach Paras Mhambrey needs to be sticked too as India have failed to uproot 20 wickets successively for the 4th time overseas.

The wondrous league (IPL) has noticeably started to puncture detritions for the national side. The mirroring repercussions seem to exceed, with players religiously fighting tooth and nail for their ‘money engulfed franchise’. Skipper voiced, “In an ideal scenario I would’ve liked to have 20-25 days preparation”. Did anyone immobilise the ‘Mumbai ka Raja’ or ‘Bengaluru’s King Kohli’ to surrender the last phase of IPL and fly to England for gearing up. Pat Cummins or Starc would’ve become millionaires in IPL, but they prioritised national duties to make themselves equipped for the big stage.

The misappropriation in shot selection was itching the eye balls at the WTC Finals, which indeed highlighted their lack of game preparation in tests. The thrill and passion to give their absolute best for the country seems downmarket in comparison to the love they outpour for the franchise.

“‘We’ve been thinking about important matches for the last 8-9 years and couldn’t win. So we have to think and do something different this time for the World Cup.”, said the Indian skipper at the press conference. A change in intent and mindset is ‘something different’ we’ve been yearning to witness since the past few years. It’ll be unacceptable if Bharat is transformed into a scapegoat while the underwhelming accountants with the bat still pleasure their seats in the XI. The deserving players need to be drafted in, contrary to which the densified domestic circuit will be a dried scrap. India needs to break the jinx at ICC knockouts, and it’ll indeed be truthful if a brave selection decision is on the cards. As India steams in July for the next round of WTC cycle against the Caribbeans, each one of us will hope with the slightest trace of optimism in this calamitous situation.