CHENNAI: Where do you even begin?
From the decision to bench Cheteshwar Pujara for Shikhar Dhawan to ensure KL Rahul a berth in the playing XI? Or from the failure of a batting unit that has hid behind its captain, who has repeatedly bailed them out? Or from those dropped catches in the slips, which if taken would have not left India chasing 194 in first place? The list is endless.
Birmingham, courtesy India’s 31-run defeat against England on Saturday, has now joined Barbados, Chennai and Adelaide as the cities that the team’s fans will remember for hurtful losses.
The only solace here is that they at least came close to winning at a venue where no Asian side has clinched a Test. Edgbaston isn’t the easiest of places to bat thanks to its weather and conditions; a strong reason behind why England like to play there. But, you know — rather, we all — how this India team continues to blessed with gifted players who are always faced with one particular nemesis: selection calls.
How long are we going to see Dhawan opening in such conditions, where he seldom gets into positions to prolong his stay in the middle? How long will we see Pujara watch a fragile middle-order crumble? True, he didn’t have the best of county seasons, but he at least is better-equipped to see off the new ball and lay a platform for Virat Kohli.
Imagine this. Openers Murali Vijay and KL Rahul, along with Pujara at one-down, have helped India amble to 140/2. Kohli walks in. There’s no scoreboard pressure. He cuts loose in the way only he can. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? After all, a settled top-order too helped make Sachin Tendulkar who he became after the turn of this millennium.
But, reality is quite different. In India’s opener merry-go-round, nobody has come out on top. They now have three such men with severely-dented confidence. Not to mention a No 3 who doesn’t know when he will next get a chance. This chopping and changing has had a ripple effect on India’s slip cordon, where catches have been treated like cups filled to the brim with boiling tea.
All said and done, India should know that their batting let them down. Bowlers have kept them in the game, no matter where they play. But, when was the last time you saw anyone apart from Kohli make runs on foreign shores, barring Sri Lanka and Caribbean? You’d have to go back to India’s tour of Australia in 2014-15. Vijay, Rahul and Rahane made valuable contributions, but even then Kohli had four hundreds to his name.“Application” is what Kohli wants from India’s top-order.
“There’s a lot to learn from our lower order too. In the first innings, Ishant (Sharma) and Umesh (Yadav) got stuck in there. Ishant showed character. Umesh was there with Hardik (Pandya). Those kinds of things make you feel that as top-order batsmen, you need to apply yourself better,” he said after the loss.
“We need to look at ourselves in the mirror. There’s no hiding. Whenever you step onto the field, whatever you feel will come out in no time. We just have to be fearless, enjoy our cricket, take the negatives out, look at the positives, and build on those.”
With four more Tests to go, writing India off would be foolish. Especially given the fact that they have time and again shown resolve after having their backs pressed to a wall. South Africa — although that series was lost — was proof enough they can come back from the dead. In Johannesburg, they corrected their mistakes — especially selection ones — and succeeded. We have five days to find out if they do that again, before they step out at Lord’s.
Scoreboard
England 1st Innings: 287
India 1st Innings: 274
England 2nd Innings: 180
India 2nd Innings (overnight: 110-5): Kohli lbw Stokes 51, Karthik c Malan b Anderson 20, Pandya c Cook b Stokes 31, Shami c Bairstow b Stokes 0, Ishant lbw Rashid 11, Umesh (not out) 0, Extras (b1, lb2) 2, Total (all out, 54.2 ovs) 162.
FoW: 1-19, 2-22, 3-46, 4-63, 5-78, 6-112, 7-141, 8-141, 9-154.
Bowling: Anderson 16-2-50-2; Broad 14-2-43-2; Stokes 14.2-40-4; Curran 6-0-18-1; Rashid 4-1-9-1.