Crushing defeat in a second significant away Test series in a little over six months means Indian cricket is not so much at the crossroads as headed down a cul-de-sac. And unless steps are taken urgently to bring about a total revamp within this year, Team India will soon reach a dead end in Test match cricket, which is still considered the ultimate test of the game’s skills, technique, temperament and character of a player.
An under-performing batting lineup, touted as one of the finest in the world, has been the main culprit. The failures of top-level batsmen have put so much pressure that the bowlers have been unable to deliver in terms of the strike rate required to win matches. The captaincy has also been well below par with Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s defensive approach, his distracted ways and ineffective lines of communication with his bowlers dragging the team’s performance down.
The captain has also not helped his team’s cause by speaking ahead of a crucial Test match in a selfish vein about how he wishes to drop a format next year in order to elongate his own career to take in the defence of the World Cup in 2015. His lack of focus on his team’s abysmal over-rate issue, which triggered the imposition of a one-match ban on him, also betrays a lack of abiding interest in the five-day format. Now that he has spoken his mind on how Test cricket is a burden, maybe it’s time to pick a young captain who would devote himself to rebuilding the Test team.
The senior batsmen must make way for young players who have been knocking on the doors for a while. There is no taking away what champions like Rahul Dravid and V.V.S. Laxman have accomplished in their long careers, but they must make way so that younger batsmen may be prepared for the challenge in the years to come. Also, all the 30-plus batsmen, including Virender Sehwag, must improve their contribution as otherwise they too would be in danger of being shifted to less demanding pastures like the limited-overs arena.
No player who has been involved in the loss of seven straight Test matches on foreign soil can feel exempted from a close scrutiny of his form. The present is not, however, the time to ask a performing champion batsman of over two decades to step aside as he is not the sort to hang around if he feels he is becoming a deadweight. While we can leave the timing of his exit to Sachin Tendulkar, others must perform with an acceptable degree of consistency or be banished to playing for IPL money and not for national honour.