NEW DELHI: India’s dream of a hat-trick of series wins Down Under came to a disheartening end recently as the team lost the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 1-3 to Australia.
Poor batting performances that saw India cross the 200-run mark only thrice in 9 innings was one of the big reasons that forced the visitors to lose the BGT title after 10 years.
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While youngsters Yashasvi Jaiswal, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Shubman Gill and Rishabh Pant showed promise but lacked consistency, the stalwarts were a no show in Australia as Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli‘s run rut continued from the New Zealand series.
After the debacle Down Under, former chief selector Sunil Joshi expressed disappointment over India’s batting failures in the loss to Australia.
“It’s pretty hard to take it, but the batters need to take responsibilities. Of course, the coaching staff also needs to be aware that how they can communicate with the players – be it the hard way or the subtle way. It’s a bitter pill and we have to accept it. Every player on that tour understands what is the importance of playing for India.
“They would always like to give their best, but at times it may not happen. So the players need to be told what they need to add or adapt in terms of patience and a little bit of adjustment in their skill levels and techniques. For me, if you look at the dismissals of our top six batters in all five Test matches, I don’t see any change in that.
“It looked similar dismissals, and I’m not saying that even the Australians also got out the same way. But the difference between us and the Australians was clearly shown by the partnerships they built upon and the top order taking responsibility time and again. Also, we need to look at our fielding, as that was an area of concern,” news agency IANS quoted Joshi as saying.
The selection of all-rounders primarily for their batting rather than bowling abilities was another point of contention. Joshi advocated for five specialist bowlers, especially given the batting struggles.
“If you want to win overseas or even in India, if you want to win a Ranji Trophy, you need five bowlers. You cannot go with four bowlers, and for me, if your six batters and seventh or eighth batters are not going to score runs, you then need five proper bowlers who can win Test matches for you by picking 20 wickets.
“If you look at the amount of load Bumrah had in the five Test matches, he bowled above 150 overs. In case you’d have reduced his load to somewhere around 60 or 65 overs, his effectiveness could have been much more. In this series, every time it was Bumrah – even in the last Test match, Bumrah went out (due to back spasms) and we looked very ordinary.
“Playing in Australia is hard; it’s the hardest of all away tours and you need to be really, really on top of your A game. In one of the previous Test matches, Bumrah went out for a brief period and if I’m not wrong, he came back luckily. Everyone was concerned about his niggles and it’s bound to happen because he’s stretching. He’s also a human being and he is giving every effort to every ball he bowls because it’s effective.
“I am not saying that it’s on batters or bowlers; it’s the responsibility of the complete team. As a team, they have not done well as a team and lost the series, so accept it. There’s no point in pinpointing anyone. The top six batters needed to score and put up runs on the board. Then only you are allowing your bowlers to take 20 wickets. If you’re not scoring runs in the top up front, it’s tough for the bowlers also,” he said.
The former chief selector also pointed out how the lack of long batting innings affected the bowlers’ recovery time.
“You look at how many times the bowlers and bowling unit spent time on the ground in the series. Did they get a proper two days of rest? No. They were almost bowling on the ground every day or for one and a half days. If you’re bowling 15, 17, 18 or 20 overs, you can’t have that intensity to bowl every one and a half days, because the body will not recover on the field.
“That’s because you’re going to field for 90 overs as well and that’s a lot of toil on their bodies too. If you want to keep them fresh, then our batters needed to put up runs on the board and bat for 90, 120 or 140 overs. If that happened, they would have scored 400-plus runs, and that was missing,” he concluded.
