It does seem Virat Kohli’s team is going the way of MS Dhoni’s did in two Test tours of England. When it comes to playing the kings of swing, the current team is not so hot although it is ranked the world’s top Test side. The question eternally hanging around the team’s ranking was whether it would stand the test of away tours. Impressive as the South African foray was despite having lost the Test series before a consolation win came, it was not conclusive about the team having cracked the away-from-home conundrum. Team India were No. 1 when they lost 4-0 and the rank in Dhoni’s worst run of four of eight defeats on the run abroad in 2011-12 in England and Australia.
It is an old Boycott saying that, “like wine, the Indians do not travel well.” The challenge in South Africa was different in the sense that the batsmen were mostly toiling against the pace, bounce and a bit of seam movement. The swing and seam conditions of England are the most challenging test of batsmanship, in which we have come a cropper. But this is an old tale that could be taken back to the 1950s, or 1974 which was christened the Summer of ’42 as Indians fell like nine pins on what was said to be the unhappiest tour of England by an Indian team. If they do not pull themselves up by their bootstraps in the remaining Tests that may be played in drier weather in conditions that may not be as receptive to the dual swing-and-seam factor, I am afraid a hat-trick of Test series defeats in England would be inevitable.
The first Test match was so much in the balance almost to the very end thanks to Kohli’s batting masterclass in making 200 runs in the two innings that we didn’t see the abysmal Lord’s rout coming. There was a bit of a fightback when they had England down to 89 for four and the lead envisaged then was only a small one for England. We must also blame the Indian fats bowlers who had done an admirable job in South Africa and at Edgbaston but who sprayed the ball all over the place in the first 30 minutes or so of the England innings. When your team has managed only 107, no bowler can afford to be profligate. In the end, Bairstow and Woakes took the game a distance away from a hapless India whose spinners had nothing going for them.
For the top-rated side in world cricket, Team India cannot be so brittle in English conditions. They did settle to the challenge in South Africa where the ball bounces and seams but only after having lost the first two Tests and the series. The point is Indian batsmen have proved far too vulnerable against the moving ball on the last three tours of England. It is easy to blame it on the amount of white ball cricket being played these days in international cricket. The point is Team India’s fortunes in Tests at home and away are so contrasted as to be freakish. Kohli may not have been fit enough to make a fight of it in the second digs at Lord’s but the 10 others in his team showed themselves to be incapable of a gritty show when the going got tough.
The Indian batsmen’s technique and temperament have to improve in this set of batsmen, otherwise the No. 1 ranking will be a mirage or so influenced by home Tests that it can only be a computer-aided freak rather than reality. The processional pity of 66 for six was like an action replay of so much I saw in England except that grittier sets of batsmen worked at it far better as on the 1986 tour. Even on the other tours that were usually lost in the first Test before settling down to English conditions, India recovered to fare well enough. It is hard to see a recovery from 2-0 down at this point when Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad have got into the Indians’ heads, with great help from the likes of young Sam Curran and Chris Woakes. The batting conditions may improve in the approaching autumn but then will or bowlers be good enough to win three Tests on the trot? That would be wishful thinking.
