The repeated slump of current Indian
team in Test cricket: A discourse
Sanjoy Roy
July 25, 2025
The Indian national team's fortunes in the Test format are looking bleak, as the Men in Blue recently suffered defeats in the longest format - the first and third Tests of the ongoing series against England. Since Gautam Gambhir had taken over the charge of head coach, the defeat of Indian cricket team in Lords test match was India's eighth defeat out of the 13 matches played so far - a record that has raised eyebrows in the Indian cricket community. India has won just four tests - two against Bangladesh, one against Australia and one against England, with one match ending in a draw. India have shown flashes of brilliance at times, but their inconsistency and frequent failures in the Test format have led to widespread criticism whether the Indian head coach's approach is in line with the team's strengths. Indian cricket fans are left devastated by the Lord's Test match result, like a ship sinking on the shore. At the end of the fourth day of the Test match, many were mentally prepared that India would lose the match. Since the defeat of Lords Test, questions have started about the role of the captain and coach, because a certain winning match has slipped out of hand.
In Lords test match , when England's second innings score was 150 runs for four wickets, it seemed that it would be difficult for India to chase down the runs and win. Because from there, even if England could score less, it would be close to 200 runs, and many have forgotten the last time when India had chased down 200+ runs and won in the fourth innings. Except for Pant, Gill, Washington Sundar, no one has the experience of scoring more than 200 runs to win. So it was a tough mental challenge. After lunch on the fourth day, the game started slipping out of India's grip. The pitch looked like it had "spin", but many could not understand why the captain of the team was not inviting a spinner to bowl despite having two quality spinners in his team. The presence of four pace bowlers in the team may have prompted him to go to the pace bowlers again and again, but there was no significant result in favor of his decision. Is the policy of playing with four pacers in the team ideal or wrong - when there are two quality spinners in the team, the biggest question now is for the coach and the captain. Many believe that it is an immature policy and wrong strategy of the coach and the captain. The inclusion of four pacers has changed the ideal combination of the team; as a result, the team comprised three pace bowlers, three all-rounders (one pace bowling and two spin bowling), four batters and a wicket-keeper batsman. After the Edgbaston victory, it was suggested that no matter how big the victory the team gets, the most important thing is to fix the team combination. In the second match, Shubman Gill, Jaiswal, Jadeja scored a lot of runs and the rest of the Indian team's pace bowlerscould grasp 20 wickets of England, even without the services of Ace pace bowler (Bumrah).However, it was not an ideal combination. A Test team with four specialist batsmen is not a safe and ideal combination, especially when the team's number three batsman had been struggling to get runs and not scored 50 runs even once in the last four innings. Legendary Indian and foreign cricketers, commentators and experts have clearly ventilated that playing Tests with four batsmen is risky. Many believe that this is one of the reasons for the failure of the Lord's Test match.
Everyone knew that Bumrah would come in the team in place of Prasidh Krishna in the third Test. The coach and captain did not break the winning combination, although some changes were needed to fill or reduce some inherent gaps in the team, such as the inclusion of another specialist batsman and a leg-spinner in the team. But it did not happen. Everyone who understands cricket knowsthat the playing eleven of the current Indian team is not supremeand many are against the principle of playing with six bowlers in Test matches and therefore Nitish Reddy should have been replaced in the team to maintain balance. An expert batsman was recommended with a team combination of three pacers, two spinners, five batsmen and a wicketkeeper-batsman. It is observed that almost 85 overs are being bowled in England on an average in a day. This means that two spinners would bowl from one end and three pacers from the other. But that did not happen, there were six bowlers in the team, so it was not possible to use all the bowlers equally and effectively by the skipper as he was not accustomed to such practices. Except for Bumrah, no other pacer could bowl well in the first innings, and England's score rose from 270/7 to 387. The Indian team could gauge the weight/importance of 387 runs on a slow wicket at Lord's on the second day when three important wickets fell very quickly. The runs scored by K.L. Rahul, Rishabh Pant and Jadeja could level India's first innings score at par with England's. It is worth noting that the Indian team has been experiencing occasional batting failures since the series loss to the Kiwis on home soil. In this Test too, India lost four wickets within just eleven runs.
In the second innings, the Indian bowlers were unable to bowl consistently despite the advantage of the pitch. In Rishabh's absence, Dhruv Jurel took over the wicket-keeping duties. However, poor keeping and erratic bowling by the Indian pacers resulted in conceding 25 runs as ‘bye’ toEngland. The team's attacking policy was also partly responsible for this as the wicket-keeper was asked to stand near the stumps and keep the wicket. As a result, the team had to concede an extra 32 runs, of which 25 were ‘byes’. In the first innings, the Indians conceded 31 runs as extras of which 11 runs were ‘byes’. This means that India conceded a total of 63 runs as extras in this match, of which 36 were ‘byes’. In contrast, England conceded only 30 extra runs in Third test match, 12 in the first innings and 18 in the second. England's wicketkeeper conceded only 6 runs as ‘bye’ (over the two innings). This meant that the defeat of was not only due to the failure of the bowlers and batsmen, but also due to the fielding failure. The difference in extra runs between the two teams was (63 - 30) = 33 and the difference in ‘bye’s was (31 runs for India - 6 runs for England) = 25 runs, while India lost the match by 22 runs.
It is known to us that India lost the first Test due to the inept tactics of the coach and captain, as well as the plummeting of multiple catches (10 nos) and the failure of the lower order batsmen. In this match too, the cost of dropped catches proved grave. England's batsman Olly Pope had been dropped twice in the first innings. First, before he could score any run by Shubman Gill and secondly when his personal score was 10 runs , he had survived a narrow escape from KL Rahul. Moreover, Jamie Smith,England's batter cum wicketkeeper, was given a life by KL Rahul at his individual score of 12 runs and later on, Smith was out for 51 runs. Thus, the cost of two dropped catches stood at [44+ (51-12)] = 83 runs, proving the fact that the fielding of the Indian team is a real concern. India lost the match by just 22 runs.
The patience, discipline and dedication of the batsmen are also being discussed. Yashasvi Jaiswal's bold attitude to take an indomitable shot at the beginning of the second innings of the third test match was a sudden disaster for the team. Yes, it is true that in the first innings, he was dismissed by an unplayable delivery from Archer, but his childish attitude in taking aggressive shot in the second innings was unforgivable. When a team has to chase runs in the fourth innings, a good start is a prima facie requirement; instead he opened the door to the downfall of the Indian team. The lack of cricketing sense of the Indian players to learn from the skills, mentality and situations of the other team's players is something that surprises the average fans. A coach may not teach and tell a lot, but good and renowned players learn from situations and mistakes. When Karun Nair and Rahul were fielding at slips, they might have noticed that Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Crawley were coming up to bat above the popping crease to effectively counter the swing of the pace bowlers so that they do not fall into the trap of being out as LBW. It is hard to believe that the important batsmen of the Indian team did not follow the England batsmen, which raised the question of what the team's batting coach was doing? It's really sad to think that three of India's key batsmen had been trapped as LBW as they had batted standing inside the popping crease.
In fact, mental stress plays a big role in the game of cricket.Ravindra Jadeja's innings proves it.The team's score suddenly moved from 41/1 wicket to 81/7 wicket due to the lack of application, intelligence, mental strength and patience of the Indian batsmen.Whatever have been said in the above paragraphs, these are not intended to criticize the Indian team or break their morale and confidence. Cricket is a passion for Indians and they love to watch all forms of cricket and for that they spend valuable time and money and they want to see their team win. But the reality is that the performance of the Indian Test team since the Kiwis' tour of India in 2024 has disappointed the Indian fans.A 3-0 loss to the New Zealand team at home, a 3-1 series loss in Australia, currently it’s trail by 2-1 against England and repetition of the same mistake at Old Trafford Manchester are heart-wrenching and unacceptable to many Indian supporters. That is why the frustration is galore.The above description is a narrativeof how ordinary cricket fans see the game with their own eyes.No one is saying that the head coach is not trying to bring positive results. But it seems that he could not understand the strategic errors. Neither he could select a balanced team nor is heable to extract the best from the players. It may also be the fact that the players are too excited and as a result, his ideas/plans are falling flat etc. Many of those who are speaking against him are luminaries, experienced and audacious.Therefore, he should listen to everything carefully and if necessary, bring in some changes in the policy, especially the appropriate combination of the team. The number of main batsmen(5 or 6), the number and nature of bowlers to be inducted in the team includingthe strategy to be deployed would be the prerogative of coach and captain and they would decide it as they like.Making each player mentally confident and positive, is the main responsibility of the coach. GautamGambhir is known as an attacking coach, but he needs to learn and adopt some defensive strategies along with the attacking policy. It is essential to adopt a mid-way according to the needs of time and demand. However, all Indian fans are hoping that India would turn things around in the fourth Test and take a fitting revenge for the Lord's defeat at Old Trafford, Manchester. Time would say what happens.
(Tripurainfo)
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