Guwahati: Twenty-five years ago, India lost two back-to-back Tests at home to South Africa. The first one was on a turner, the second on a perfectly good batting pitch where South Africa scored 479. By stumps on Day 3 at Barsapara here, the signs are that history will repeat itself. In that 2000 series, the Indian team, going through a transition with Sachin Tendulkar about to leave captaincy, did not cross the 250-mark even once. That may well happen again, with the hosts managing 189, 93 and 201 in the three innings so far.
In 2000, India were still not sure who their next captain would be. A quarter of a century later, the problem is centred around their coach Gautam Gambhir and how he wants to conduct his team in Test cricket. But no discussion of the Monday debacle can start without Rishabh Pant’s man-child carelessness with the bat. In his first Test as captain, his horribly injudicious charge — off just the eighth ball he faced — to Marco Jansen, who was in the middle of a dream spell, threw India’s chances of a fightback into the Brahmaputra. “On another day, the bowler would have gone into the stands and all of us would have appreciated and clapped. That’s how it is,” Washington Sundar’s defence of Pant at the close of play really sounded weak. While Pant’s dismissal was unquestionably the most glaring one on Monday, unnecessary chopping and changing by the management continues to haunt the team. Washington, who looked a perfect fit at No. 3 on a difficult track at Eden Gardens, was pushed down to No. 8 where he scored a patient 48, an innings worthy of a top-order player.No wonder, the question came flying in at the end of day’s play: “Do you prefer a permanent top-order batting slot instead of the different positions that you’ve batted in recently?” Washington deflected the query: “I will play wherever the team wants me to play. It’s a bit like football these days, a player can be effective even when he plays 25 or 30 minutes.” The guy who replaced Washy at No. 3, Sai Sudharsan, has been struggling in that position for a while now. In the nine Test innings that he has played, Sai has an average of 30.33 and his inability to keep his shots down on the on-side has led to his dismissal time and again. It was pretty much the same on Monday and it allowed South Africa to push open the door. Gambhir has completely forgotten about Sarfaraz Khan, who scored a battling century against New Zealand in Bengaluru last year but followed it up with failures in four innings where everyone else struggled. Left-hander Devdutt Padikkal has been travelling with the team for a while but hasn’t got a look-in since Perth Test last year — probably the off-spin that he delivers at the nets is still not up to scratch. Coach Gambhir believes in multiskilled players which is fine in theory, but when the results don’t come, the question needs to be asked: why such a dislike for specialists? In Shubman Gill’s absence, Dhruv Jurel was played at No. 4, while the next four (including Rishabh Pant) are allrounders. According to Indian spin legend Anil Kumble, all of them showed the lack of temperament to get themselves accustomed to the track and then do the damage. “I don’t see the application that is needed on a pitch like this. And the reluctance to use specialists is also surprising,” Kumble said during commentary for the official broadcasters. Nitish Reddy has been tagged an allrounder but all he bowled in the first innings was six overs out of 151. He then came into bat at No. 7 and failed to deal with the short ball that Marco Jansen produced. Sitanshu Kotak, the team batting coach, had blamed the Eden pitch for the debacle that they suffered. But Washington’s admission following the Barsapara first-innings debacle, may add a bit of salt to India’s wounds. “It was a true wicket. Not everyday will you get to bat on such tracks, especially in India. If you spend time there, runs are there for the taking.” Washington’s words underlined India’s poor performance on Monday.
