India’s billion of fans aren’t likely to forgive New Zealand for ruining this year’s festival of lights.
There was a massive outage in the country of a billion diehard cricket fans as they prepared to celebrate Diwali, only for New Zealand to hand India a 3-0 Test whitewash.
It’s the first sweep in a three-Test-and-over series that India has conceded and it came at the hand of a squad few expected to win one Test, let alone three.
India is in a state of shock and angry fans and former internationals are demanding that the country’s best batsmen be dropped. They want captain Rohit Sharma and demigod Virat Kohli to retire or step down from the Test game.
But that isn’t likely to happen anytime soon as India is less than three weeks away from its next assignment and that is a trip Down Under for a five-Test series against Australia, in my estimation the best cricketing nation in any format today.
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New coach Gautham Gambir and skipper Sharma have only a short time to turn things around or India is headed for another embarrassment.
Cricket fans in Australia and India have been gearing up for this confrontation for several months as India has stunned the Aussies on its past two visits Down Under and that is a rarity.
This clash for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy has overtaken the Ashes, a series involving Australia and England, in terms of class and television revenue. The trophy is named after former distinguished captains of the two countries — Allan Border and Sunil Gavaskar.
India defeated Australia 2-1 in 2018-19 and 2020-21. Those defeats gave the Aussies a jolt and signified they were no longer as invincible as when the series first began 75 years ago.
The humiliation at the hands of New Zealand is going to have major consequences for Gambhir and a number of current internationals. If Sharma and Kohli don’t produce in Australia, they are toast and they probably have played for the last time in India.
One also can assume joining them on the sidelines at home will be ace all-rounders and spin aces Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja.
So, what went wrong with this powerhouse? The batsmen reverted to playing as though they were in a Twenty20 contest and a couple of their top players fell to reverse sweeps. This technique is fine in the T20 game not in Tests.
One must wonder why the coach did not put them on the carpet.
After getting thrashed in the first two encounters by eight wickets and 113 runs, respectively, there was abject capitulation in the third when chasing a meagre 147 for victory.
But let us not take any credit away from a Kiwi squad that was in full flight while it appears that the Indian millionaires were resting on their press clippings.
New Zealand wrapped up the third Test with two and a half days to spare after dismissing the home team for 121 inside 30 overs. New Zealand set the pace from the first Test in Bengaluru when fast bowlers Matt Henry with five for 15 and William O’Rourke with four for 22 sent India packing for an only 46. Five Indians had ducks and that included Kohli. Then it was the turn of the spinners to twirl their way into the history books.
Mitchell Santner baffled the Indian batsmen as he took seven for 53 and crowned it with six for 104 as New Zealand to wrap up the series.
Then, at the Wankhede Stadium, it was the turn of Mumbai-born Ajaz Patel to baffle India with five for 103 in the first innings and six for 57 in the second.
The 36-year-old Patel emigrated to New Zealand with his parents when he was eight years old. Done in by pace in the first and spin in the next two makes one wonder if Indian batsmen no longer can play spinners.
Now that India is to set sail for Australia, there is another problem that has reared its ugly head: Sharma has said he won’t be available for the first Test to attend to a personal matter.
This decision did not sit to well with Gavaskar now a leading commentator. He suggested vice-captain Jasprit Bumrah take over the captaincy from Sharma while the latter be brought back into the squad as a player.
CUMMINS STARS FOR AUSSIES
Pat Cummins is better known for his exploits with the ball, but he played a crucial innings to lead Australia to a two-wicket victory over Pakistan in the first ODI in Melbourne.
Chasing 204, Australia struggled from 113 for two to 155 for seven, before Cummins finished on 32 from 31 balls to lead Australia to victory with 16.3 overs to spare.
Australia has two more ODIs and three Twenty20s before the much anticipated series versus India.
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