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Inconceivable as it might appear, it will be no exaggeration to say that for the first time in a really, really long while, India don’t go into a home Test as overwhelming favourites. A carefully and assiduously constructed run of 18 home series victories came crumbling down in Pune last week following their 113-run loss to New Zealand in the second Test. Sitting on a 2-0 lead, New Zealand are primed to become the first team since Clive Lloyd’s West Indies in 1983 to win three Tests (in a six-match showdown) in a series on Indian soil, an ignominy India will be determined to avoid at the Wankhede Stadium from Friday, when the final Test gets going.
Batting meltdowns
It’s been a fortnight to forget for Rohit Sharma’s men; the skipper won a toss in Bangalore he would have been better off losing and lost the other where batting first would have helped, but Rohit had no say in things beyond spinning the coin because it was Tom Latham who did the calling.
Shubman Gill bats at the Wankhede nets yesterday
Irrespective of which way the coin came down, India’s current predicament is a combination of their own batting meltdowns and the discipline and enterprise shown by the Kiwi quicks in the first Test and left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner, largely, in the second.
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Out-played, out-thought
India have not just been out-batted and out-bowled so far, but also perhaps out-thought. It is imperative for them to bounce back immediately before they leave for Australia and five Tests, not only for confidence and feel-good, but also to add crucial World Test Championship points to their kitty. Despite the two reversals against New Zealand, they are still on top of the WTC table, but only just. Victory at the Wankhede will give them a little more breathing space with the race for spots in the final hotting up with New Zealand too in the mix.
India have lost wickets in bunches in all four innings, though assistant coach Abhishek Nayar insisted he wouldn’t ‘call it a collapse’. “Is it worrying?” he asked, rhetorically. “The only way we look at it is how we can get out of it. That’s our thought process, that’s our mindset. I thought in the second innings in Pune, we did a lot better wherein we could get those runs, and we put up a fight. We just want to go strength to strength and try to focus on how we can go forward rather than overthink and overanalyse what hasn’t happened for us.”
What hasn’t happened is the impactful runs Rohit and Virat Kohli are renowned for. The two lead batters must find ways to get out of the beginnings of a rut, though it can’t be denied that New Zealand haven’t made their task easy by constantly probing away. The Wankhede is Rohit’s cricketing home and the stage for many a Kohli masterpiece, including a century in his last outing against the same opponents, in the World Cup semi-final last November. Will that be the trigger for a return to type?
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