India drop Gambhir

India announced a 15-man squad for the first two Tests against Australia, apparently taking a leaf out of the tourists Ashes-preparation manual. The notable feature in it though is that Gautam Gambhir has been dropped and will play for India A instead. It’s not too surprising when one considers Gambhir’s overall form; he has not scored a Test century in over three years and even that was against Bangladesh. (Though he had hit two in three innings in Sri Lanka two months prior to that.)

But recently Gambhir has actually fared okay; he was the lone resistance against England in the second innings at Mumbai and went past fifty in the first innings at Calcutta as well. He finished the series with the second highest average of all India’s specialist batsmen, behind only Cheteshwar Pujara. Whilst that alone would not generally be enough to stay the axe, it is a bit surprising in the context of India’s general woes that it should be Gambhir who was dropped ahead of another. In particular, Virender Sehwag has been just as out of form and arguably looked worse against England. Sehwag has morphed into the very definition of a flat-track bully and has no answer to even slightly above average bowling. That doesn’t mean he won’t get runs at home against Australia, their bowling is so mercurial anything could happen, but of the two Indian openers he certainly looks less likely to make a recovery than Gambhir. And that’s just looking at the openers and saying nothing about a certain SR Tendulkar…

The other aspect of note in the squad is that Harbhajan Singh has been recalled as a third spinner, further underlining the lack of depth India have in the bowling at the moment. India tried many different options against England, including four in the Nagpur Test, and they had very little success as a group, even over the entire series. After looking at all those other options, the fact that Singh is still considered to be the third best spinner in India is quite damming. That said, Australia believe their second best spinner to be Xavier Doherty. For a series in India, the lack of quality spin options on both sides is very interesting; we might be in for some high-scoring matches.

This series may be the start of India’s rebuilding and dropping an underperforming batsman is certainly a step forward. But the Indian selectors have made a soft choice as to which batsman and the squad as a whole still leaves a lot to be desired. The series starts in under a fortnight and I suspect that if India don’t make some difficult decisions before then they will find themselves under a lot of pressure to do so shortly thereafter.

India 1-2 England review and player marks

Ten months ago I stayed awake through the night and listened in horror as England capitulated against Pakistan’s spinners in Abu Dhabi. The contrast between that and staying up through the night in this series could hardly have been more pronounced.

England played remarkable cricket to win this series. They had a horror start as India piled on the runs in Ahmedabad and then England’s displayed their same problems against spin. To come back from that massive hole and nine wicket defeat was a massive achievement. After that they batted much better (actually they batted much better starting in the second innings at Ahmedabad) but more importantly they outbowled India. England’s spinners comfortably outperformed their Indian counterparts in Mumbai and then James Anderson took over in Calcutta and Nagpur. England’s willingness to adapt, sometimes ruthlessly, was perhaps their most impressive aspect. Stuart Broad had a shocking two Tests and was dropped despite being the vice-captain. England knew they had someone better. The same thing happened with Samit Patel; he did not play terribly, but England decided they had better batsmen to fill that role and Joe Root performed brilliantly.

That came in sharp contrast to India, who now have a lot of questions to answer. India’s selection throughout the series was muddled, their tactics were questionable and their players badly underperformed. They seemed to have watched England struggle to play spin last winter and at Ahmedabad in the first innings and then simply refused to believe over the next Tests that England had improved in that regard. They seemed certain that they were going to win the series and never responded when England started to get he upper hand. Their minds also seemed out of it. They showed some fight, but very seldom at times that were really important. When their chances of winning the series started to slip away in the second innings at Calcutta their entire middle order surrendered and left it to Ashwin to spare the humiliation of an innings defeat. On the fourth evening at Nagpur they lashed out at the batsmen and umpires instead of trying to actually get wickets before coming out the next morning, still with an outside chance to make something of the series, and doing absolutely nothing for five hours until they could shake hands. MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli showed admirable fight and application in their first innings at Nagpur, but it served mostly to highlight the absence of that mentality for the rest of the series.

As important as the tactics and relative mentality of the two sides were, however, England in the end simply outplayed India. Alastair Cook led the way and could seemingly only be denied a ton by dodgy umpiring. But six of the seven batsmen to get more than one Test for England scored a fifty in the series and so did one of the two who got only one Test. Four of them scored a hundred at some point and as a team England scored more than four hundred in three of their five completed innings. India managed to do the same just one time in six innings. Part of that was down to the bowlers; Stuart Broad aside, England’s generally turned in very good performances. They either took wickets or kept the batsmen tied down. India simply never had the same kind of control. Ashwin had a shocking series, Zaheer Khan was so bad he was actually dropped. Ishant Sharma and Pragyan Ojha were the only ones to do much and even they sometimes looked helpless. India did not help themselves with selection though; picking Piyush Chawla for the last Test was mystifying and it was clear well before he was dropped that India had better bowlers than Khan.

England deserved their victory, their first in India for 28 years. My marks for the individual players are as follows (and unlike the Times I don’t think any of them played for Chelsea at the weekend):

England (88/150, average 5.87)
Alastair Cook* – 10
Perfect ten for the captain. To use the old cliché, he led from the front with the bat and would have finished with the highest average fro England were it not for Joe Root getting his runs with only one dismissal. He also led the side well; his tactics were good, his bowling changes were good and he did not let heads drop after the defeat in the first Test. Now if only he could get a coin toss right more often than once every six times…

Nick Compton – 7
It was a good, if unspectacular series for Compton. He batted solidly in the first three Tests and helped England lay an important platform in the first innings of the Mumbai and Calcutta Tests before getting the winning runs in style in the first and keeping his head on the last day of the second. His final average does not do him justice.

Jonathan Trott – 5
Trott had a bit of trouble at the start of the series; he was a little bit scratchy and got out to some good deliveries and some only mediocre deliveries. But he finished strongly with 87 in Calcutta and 143 in Nagpur to see England to Test and series winning scores. His fielding at slip followed a similar pattern; he put down a sitter in the first Test, but took some very good catches later in the series.

Kevin Pietersen – 8
Pietersen was successfully reintegrated into the England side and marked this by attempting to sweep a ball that went on to hit his off stump. But that was the nadir of the series for him; he went on to play the best constructed century I have seen from him on a very difficult wicket in Mumbai and followed up with a pair of solid fifties in Calcutta and Nagpur.

Ian Bell – 5
Much like Trott, Bell had a poor start to the series. He played a horrific shot in Ahmedabad and although he looked in decent touch throughout he got a bit careless at times to get out. He came through in the last Test, however, playing a vital unbeaten hundred to ensure England’s safety.

Joe Root – 8
Root looked like a Test batsman from the first ball of his debut in Nagpur. He came in with England in a bit of trouble and played very mature 73 to see England most of the way to a good total. He will certainly be on the plane to New Zealand.

Matt Prior† – 9
Prior was very solid throughout the series; he had few errors behind the stumps as usual and scored runs at an average of better than fifty. His biggest blemish was the terrible run out that precipitated England’s collapse in Mumbai.

Tim Bresnan – 1
Bresnan only played the first and last Tests and he had an absolute shocker in the first. He was not threatening and had no control. He was a lot better in the second Test, though could not pick up a wicket on the lifeless Nagpur pitch. He did cause problems and keep the scoring down, however, which was about all a bowler could do.

Graeme Swann – 8
Swann was statistically England’s best bowler in this series. He took a team best twenty wickets at a team best 24.75 average. He never had a single standout performance, but he was always a threat to pick up wickets and made the most of the Mumbai track in taking 8-113 in the match.

James Anderson – 9
Swann was statistically England’s best bowler, but Anderson was England’s actual best bowler. He could only keep the runs down in the first Test and had little to do in the second with the spinners bowling, but turned in exceptional performances in the last two Tests. With the pitches still not giving him any assistance he took six wickets in Calcutta and four in the only innings he bowled in Nagpur.

Monty Panesar – 8
Panesar was left out of England’s defeat at Ahmedabad, but recalled for the raging turner at Mumbai. He took his chance as well as eleven wickets in the match. His performances in Calcutta and Nagpur were significantly less impressive, but he was able to bowl long spells that kept the runs down and pressure on.

Jonny Bairstow – 0
Bairstow only played one Test, filling in for Bell at Mumbai, and contributed nine runs to England’s first innings total before playing a terrible shot and then failing to realise that he wasn’t actually out off it. It was a poor innings and he did not get to bat in the second. He’ll have to fight to get his number six spot back in New Zealand.

Samit Patel – 3
Patel played in the first three Tests as and never really did anything wrong. But he never managed to convert any starts of follow up the promise he showed in the warmup matches and was dropped for Joe Root.

Stuart Broad – 0
Broad was appointed vice-captain before the start of the series, but was troubled by a heel injury and bowled utterly appallingly in the first two Tests. He was then dropped for the fit-again Steven Finn and ultimately returned to England for treatment.

Steven Finn – 7
Finn bowled very well in the only Test he played. But two different injuries (the first of which had a recurrence) kept him out of most of the series. It was a blow to England who clearly missed his pace and bounce in the other three Tests.

India (46/150, average 3.07)
Gautam Gambhir – 6
Gambhir had a surprisingly good series for someone who came into it so out of form. He made a nice rearguard fifty as the rest of the side collapsed around him in Mumbai and similarly made a few runs before the implosion at Calcutta. But he never managed to do anything with those starts and also ran out two partners in Calcutta. He’s only a few overs of surprisingly effective rubbish bowling away from being India’s answer to Shane Watson.

Virender Sehwag – 3
Sehwag scored a blistering 117 on the first day of the series, then returned to his usual form making only 136 runs in the next five innings. A lot of this was down to his terrible technique, but he also was run out by Gambhir when he was looking dangerous in Calcutta.

Cheteshwar Pujara – 8
Started the series by looking like Rahul Dravid had in England. He scored an unbeaten double century at Ahmedabd before scoring a fighting 135 in Mumbai to get India to a respectable, if ultimately insufficient, score. He fell off from there (how could he not), but between incorrect decisions and being run out by his partner he still comes out of the series well.

Sachin Tendulkar – 1
Tendulkar’s top score in this series was the 76 made whilst trying to arrest a collapse in Calcutta. That much is quite respectable, but his next highest score in the series was 13 and he failed to get to double figures in six of his eight innings. He looks very much like a fading force and it his not clear what he gains by hanging on any longer.

Virat Kohli – 3
Kohli scored a fantastic century in Nagpur that rescued India from a position of considerable danger. It was a great innings in which he completely abandoned his usual game and just accumulated runs. But he waited until the last innings of the series to do that; in the first three Tests his top score was exactly twenty.

MS Dhoni*† – 1
Dhoni took some responsibility for his side in the last Test and fought hard for his 99. But his tactical deficiencies throughout the series were glaring and his selection muddled. As much as he fought in the last Test, he surrendered just as much in the third Test. He will be lucky to hang on to the captaincy.

Ravindra Jadeja – 1
Jadeja gets a very low score, but only got to bat once and was trapped by a vicious inswinger from Anderson. There’s really not enough there to judge for the long term. His one point comes from the wickets he picked up bowling.

Ravichandran Ashwin – 3
It’s very hard to judge Ashwin in this series. He was meant to be their main spin bowler and a decent bat down the order. But he was utterly innocuous with the ball and took his wickets at over fifty runs apiece. But he still managed to keep his batting average higher than his bowling one with some excellent rearguards. But those all came too late to help his country; he needed to perform with the ball and didn’t.

Piyush Chawla – 2
Chawla somehow took four wickets in England’s first innings despite bowling fairly poorly throughout. He was never threatening in the second innings and actually never should have been picked.

Ishant Sharma – 4
Sharma was India’s best bowler in the last Test and did okay in the third as well. But that was all relative and it was not a pair of Tests he will put on his highlight reel. The nadir was probably dropping an easy return chance from Alastair Cook, but his fielding overall was worse than lazy.

Pragyan Ojha – 6
Ojha was the only Indian bowler to really show up in the series and he finished level with Swann as the lead wicket taker in the series. Those wickets still came at a cost of over thirty apiece, however, as he was often made to toil during England’s long innings in the second and third Tests.

Yuvraj Singh – 1
Yuvraj Singh was apparently selected off a desire for a fairy-tale comeback story and a thought that he would be useful against Kevin Pietersen. But he has never really been Test quality and he showed that again in the first three Tests before being dropped for Nagpur.

Harbhajan Singh – 0
Selected as a third spinner for Mumbai, Harbhajan Singh took only the wickets of two tail-enders and scored 27 runs in what very well might turn out to be his last Test. Certainly he did nothing to suggest that he was still good enough to play Test cricket and did not even get a recall when India played four spinners at Nagpur.

Umaesh Yadav – 7
Yadav looked very good in the one Test in which he played. Unfortunately for India he then picked up an injury and missed the rest of the series. It was a story very similar to that of Steven Finn for England and like Finn India missed him quite a bit.

Zaheer Khan – 0
Khan is another who may very well have played his last Test; he managed just 4-213 in the first three Tests and three of those came in the first Test. For the most part England were happy to hit him around and happy to find him in the field as well; he was distinctly disinclined to pursue balls hit near him.

Calcutta, day four: India 239-9

Today was a day of brilliance and frustration in almost equal measure for England. The morning was the worst session England had since the first day at Ahmedabad and if one had told England at lunch that they would be have India nine down at stumps they would be delighted. But the first eight of those wickets fell in an extraordinary three hours after lunch.

The afternoon session was the one that took India utterly out of the match as they lost quick wickets and then appeared to capitulate. It was such a dramatic collapse that several interesting points got a bit lost at the time, but the one that very much did not was an incident in the innings of Gautam Gambhir. He prodded forward to Graeme Swann and appeared to have edged the ball to slip where Trott took an athletic catch low down. But the umpire waited and then went upstairs to check if it had carried. It clearly had and as that is the only thing for which the umpire can go upstairs it looked like it was going to be out. But the replay showed that Gambhir had not actually hit the ball and under the regulations the third umpire is allowed to give not out because of that. This is clearly a good thing; it would have been an utter farce if the replays had clearly shown that the batsman was not out, but he was given out because the umpire was not allowed to say so. But it is hardly less of a farce as it is because effectively Gambhir was saved by a having DRS for that one ball. There have been several howlers in the series with regard to the batsmen either hitting what the umpire thought they hadn’t or not hitting what the umpire thought they had. Why on earth then were they not allowed to go to the third umpire? If the BCCI accept that this back door use of technology is reliably why can they not use the same technology without having to pretend to check a catch?

The reprieve for Gambhir hardly mattered though. Even before that incident he had taken to wafting his bat at balls well outside off stump trying to dab them to point and missing. It came as absolutely no shock therefore when he edged one such ball behind trying to do the same thing a couple of overs later. It was another failure to convert a start and he also had run out Cheteshwar Pujara the ball before the catch incident which may start to invite some unwelcome comparisons to Shane Watson. But the rest of the Indian top order had fared either no better or even worse. Virender Sehwag played a loose drive the first ball after lunch and was bowled by an admitted beauty from Swann. Sachin Tendulkar pushed forward to a ball outside off for only five. Only Yuvraj Singh can say that he got a good ball, but he did not look like hanging about anyway. India’s captain seemed to embody their spirit by limply hanging his bat outside off to only the third delivery he faced. It was an absolutely terrible shot by any batsman, coming from the captain at such a point was absolutely appalling. The only way MS Dhoni could have more obviously surrendered is if he had actually taken a white flag out to the crease with him. And the sad part was that it felt more inevitable than anything else.

But luckily for Dhoni and India the message never got to Ravichandran Ashwin. He played a fantastic innings in Mumbai that appeared to help save India in the first innings, though it proved to be in vain, and this was very similar. He actually fought. HIs entire top and middle order had given up and mentally gone to Nagpur, but Ashwin almost single-handedly made sure they would be going there with some shred of dignity intact. It made for an incredibly frustrating last session for England who can justifiably think that they should have had a day off tomorrow. But as well as Ashwin played, England are partly culpable for their inability to finish the innings off. They seemed to relax a bit too much when the eighth wicket went down and just like they did in the first innings started to put too much store in keeping Ishant Sharma on strike. The result was a pair of grinding partnerships that have avoided an innings defeat for India and made sure the teams will come back tomorrow. Neither of those looked even possible half an hour after tea.

It is a moral victory for India, but it will still take a miracle for it to be anything but that. England need one wicket with the new ball tomorrow morning and then will have to knock off about fifty runs. Like in Mumbai, they will not be troubled and will go 2-1 up in the series. Perhaps on the way to Nagpur Ashwin can explain the concept of resistance to his colleagues.

Calcutta, day one: India 273-7

The nadir of the day for England was probably a little over half an hour after the start of play. An hour before that Alastair Cook had once again failed to accurately predict how the coin would land and MS Dhoni unsurprisingly opted to bat. It quickly became apparent that all the talk of a sporting wicket with ‘pace and bounce’ was either mistaken or deliberately deceptive. The wicket was actually very like the one in Ahmedabad with nothing in it for the bowlers and even though the early morning conditions did result in some swing it was so slow and generally so late it had little effect. It was clearly a great toss to win and India were settling in with Virender Sehwag scoring quickly.

After that, however, it was England’s day. India gifted England the first wicket with a comedy run out; an absolutely terrible bit of miscommunication resulted in Gautam Gambhir not bothering to run for an easy third whilst Sehwag tried desperately to get back in his ground from halfway down the wicket. He failed and England had a vital wicket. From there England bowled very well for the rest of the day. There was still almost nothing in the pitch for them, but for the most part they maintained a very disciplined line and length and almost always contrived to be threatening. It is that last part which was important; it wasn’t just defensive bowling from England. Steven Finn was getting just a bit of extra bounce from his height and Gambhir in particular was having trouble with it. Monty Panesar and Graeme Swann got enough turn to make the batsmen think twice before doing anything too rash. The combined result was that the Indian batsmen got not only tied down, but actually under pressure and made errors.

But the pick of the bowlers was James Anderson. He was simply superb all day keeping the ball in the corridor or uncertainty and just getting it to move a bit and was the only bowler to actually take his wickets directly. Twice he managed to take the outside edge of a bat with a ball just close enough to the stumps to draw the shot and moving fractionally away. Just before stumps he then bowled a similar ball to Ravichandran Ashwin which nipped in and hit middle and off. He should have had a fourth wicket as well when he trapped Yuvraj Singh in front but it was given not out. Had there been DRS the decision would have been reversed. It was the kind of bowling we saw from Anderson in the last two winters when he defied unhelpful pitches and this time he actually got some of the reward he deserved. He will come out with a new ball tomorrow morning with a chance for a deserved five wicket haul.

The other wickets to fall were gifted to various extents, although as mentioned they were at least to an extent also the result of the threatening balls that were being bowled so consistently. Swann’s one wicket came when Singh played one of the laziest drives one will ever see to an innocuous delivery and managed to pick out extra cover. Panesar was the beneficiary of Cheteshwar Pujara playing all around a straight one and Gambhir trying to cut a ball that wasn’t quite there and that bounced a little bit more. In the case of Panesar, the deliveries had some merit to them and the wicket of Gambhir was borderline between bowler success and batsman error.

The day definitely belonged to England; the pitch has 450+ written on it and India aren’t going to get near that unless their tail bat extremely well. But England still have to finish the innings off tomorrow and then have to get up to a good score themselves. They have made an excellent start, but despite the fact that the chasing team has won the first two Tests they will still want to make sure they get a decent first innings lead to minimise the target. India’s 273-7 is well below par, but England are still a long way off a commanding lead even if they get the last three wickets quickly.

Mumbai Test, day three: India 117-7

It is safe to say that the Mumbai Test will not be drawn. Of course it never really looked like being drawn after the amount it turned on the first day, but there did seem to be a sniff of a chance when Alastair Cook and Kevin Pietersen were piling on the runs in the morning. They put on over two hundred together and both scored hundreds to tie the English record for most career hundreds with 22. They both made batting look very easy in the morning and in fact Pietersen started to get very aggressive as the innings went on. By the end he was playing and innings much closer to the sort of swashbuckling one for which he was most famous. This did lead to his downfall, but not until he had already scored 186 and given how he had worked up to that aggression I don’t think there can be any real anger at his dismissal. He has played some brilliant innings, but this was the best of his career. Pietersen actually started scoring so quickly that he almost managed to get to his century before Cook did. Ultimately Cook was the first to get to three figures and kept going for some time thereafter before finally nicking one on 122. It really is a staggering pair of innings he has played in difficult circumstances in the last Test and in this one though and it is amazing to see how well the captaincy seems to suit him. Not only did he tie the English century record, he extended his own worldwide record for most matches with a ton to start a captaincy career with his fourth.

England lost two wickets in the morning and easily the most talked about was the departure of Jonny Bairstow on the stroke of lunch. He had played okay after the departure of Cook, but he played a poor shot to a ball that took a leading edge to Gautam Gambhir who bobbled it before securing it in the end. Bairstow walked off, but the ball had actually hit the grille of Gambhir’s helmet after the first bobble, which under the laws is a dead ball and thus Bairstow should have been given not out. But they went off for lunch and it was only at the end of the interval that the ball was confirmed to have hit the helmet of Gambhir. There was some confusion as to whether Bairstow could come back, but eventually it fell to MS Dhoni who understandably declined. It was in many ways a comedy of errors, though Bairstow will not find the funny side. Bairstow played a poor shot that should have resulted in a wicket almost every time. Gambhir effectively dropped it. The umpires both failed to spot that it had hit the helmet or consider the possibility and Bairstow failed to realise the significance of the ball hitting the helmet and walked off without letting the umpires get involved. The umpires certainly should have done better, but this was not really worse than any of the many other errors they have made. If one wants to be a bit strict, Gambhir also should not have appealed for the catch knowing that it hit his helmet. He probably did not know the law any more than Bairstow did, however, (although like Bairstow, he should know the law) so should not be accused of falsely claiming a catch.

England should have got a bigger lead than they did. That sounds a bit greedy with the score as it is, but the match really should not be close. England let India’s tail add a lot of runs and their own tail added almost exactly nothing. An appallingly bad run out of Matt Prior triggered a collapse of four wickets for just seven runs. The bowlers can be forgiven for that, they immediately went about proving just how hard it was to get in on that pitch, but it still looked quite sloppy from England. They ended up with a handy lead of 86, but a comparison of the scores when the fifth wickets fell in each innings shows a lead of 238 for England. Obviously in any pair of innings there will be some variation in the leads, but to let 156 runs slip at the end of the innings is too careless and is something that needs to be addressed particularly with respect to bowling sides out.

The lead was still enough to put scoreboard pressure on India though and although the certainly did not bat well in the second innings, the bowling of Swann and Panesar was something to behold. They were clearly superior to their Indian counterparts and the amount of help they got showed just how good Cook and Pietersen had batted. India will start tomorrow effectively 31-7 in their second innings. All of the batsmen who really caused problems in the first innings are already out and it is just the unlikely figure of Gambhir holding the innings together at all. India won’t need a big lead though to worry England. There have been 31 individual innings so far in the match, but only five of those have gone past thirty. It does appear to be easier going after that, three of those five are hundreds, but it is very clear that it is hard to get in and if India can make England chase more than a hundred then there will be a few nerves. That is still a big if at this point, but it is imperative that England don’t waste time tomorrow morning.

Who should open for India?

With all the selection questions for England it is easy to forget that India are hardly a settled side themselves. They appear to have managed to find a full-time spinner in Ravichandran Ashwin and a decent middle order batsman in Virat Kohli, both of which will worry England somewhat, but apart from that a lot of the questions that were prominently raised during India’s 0-8 tours of England and Australia in 2011 and 2012 are still very much open ones.

One of the biggest is that of their openers, who have been struggling. Of course it is not uncommon for openers to have a slightly torrid time in the more bowler friendly conditions of England and especially with England’s attack dismantling the Indian order indiscriminately in 2011 it was hard to place any particular blame on the openers, a certain king pair notwithstanding. But the problem for India is that their established opening pair of Gambhir and Sehwag have both been struggling overall in the past year and more. Since the start of 2011 they average only thirty for the first wicket and whilst it is better at home (as one would expect) they still did not manage any century partnerships against the West Indies or New Zealand, neither of whom have overpowering attacks. And perhaps especially worrying for India is that their openers particularly struggled against the New Zealand pace attack which bears many similarities to the one England will bring to bear in Hyderabad next month.

There does not seem to be any immediate desire for change at the top of the order, though Gambhir himself deflected questions about his and Sehwag’s form by saying they still average 53 together and ‘if 53 is not good enough, I don’t know what is good enough’. It may well be that the selectors will continue to give them lenience on the basis of performances in the increasingly distant past; such behaviour is quite common in all cricket and especially it seems in the current Indian set up. But Chetan Chauhan and Sunil Gavaskar also average 53 as an opening pair (in fact a higher 53 than Gambhir and Sehwag) and they don’t seem to be in line for a recall so perhaps Gambhir should start to worry.

I have said in the past that I would not ever play Sehwag in overseas Tests and that is still very much the case. And it is starting to get to the point where I would not play him in India either as he looks increasingly fragile. The one thing that keeps both him and Gambhir in the side at least for the England series, however, (for me at least, I doubt very much that the selectors are thinking along similar lines) is that the rest of the batting order is also in a state of upheaval. Dravid and Laxman have already retired and Tendulkar could at any time. As long as Gambhir and Sehwag are not performing so poorly as to be a clear liability I would keep them around if for no other reason then to keep some measure of stability. But they both should be on very short leashes and if they continue to get worse then stability will have to take a backseat.

What next for India?

The past few months have not been kind to India (though I’ve heard many of their fans wanted England to lose more than Pakistan, so they’ll have some consolation). It’s been clear for some time that they need to make changes and I think after their latest result they may finally do so.

They first, and relatively simple, changes are to personnel. They have some very illustrious batsmen, but they are nearing the end of their careers, if not there already. There are at least some questions to be asked about every one of the Indian top seven, though some more than others. Gautam Gambhir is one of the least well known of the Indian batmen, but he is in the eighth year of his career and averages 45. It’s certainly quite respectable, but he has not made a big score for some time now and he looked badly out of his depth in England and Australia. (He was hardly alone, of course.) He has not done very much to suggest that he be dropped, but nor has he stood out. He also has the problem common to Indian batsmen of impatience to score runs, and he does not leave balls outside his off stump well. I would probably keep him around for a bit longer, but only until the replacements are ready. With Virender Sehwag, however, I would get shot of him as soon as possible. At the very least I would never include him in a squad to play outside Asia. He has no technique and does not even come close to having the temperament for Test cricket. He is the very definition of a flat track bully, averaging 61 in Asia and a miserable 36 outside it. Worse, he is one of the most selfish players in the game. He could be one of the best batsmen in the game, but he refuses to adapt his game in difficult conditions and throws his wicket away when the team need him to perform. No where was this more apparent than in the fourth Test of this most recent series. India needed to bat for over a day to save the Test, but he kept throwing his bat at the ball. He added 62, but he runs were purely nominal. India needed a draw, and he refused to even try.

The openers, Sehwag in particular, have consistently put India in a spot of bother early in the innings, but the failing middle order is probably the most pressing concern. The three pillars of Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman have had, at best, mixed success in England and Australia, but they are all ageing. Dravid is the oddest case. He was a class apart in England, the lone aspect of resistance. In Australia, however, he has been all at sea. He has been horribly missing straight deliveries and all of a sudden he just doesn’t seem to be seeing the ball. For a batsman of his record, especially as recently as last summer it seems harsh to suggest that it will end his career, but he isn’t going to last forever. Tendulkar is probably only out of form by his lofty standards, but at the same time he seems to have lost his touch a bit. He is batting very aggressively and is certainly making starts but is not converting them. Most of his dismissals have been the result of good bowling, but they still tend to be predictable. He does not seem to treat good bowling spells with the respect he deserves. Despite what some may say, he is not god or even Bradman and at the moment he does not seem to realise that. He has some time left in him, but I suspect he his age means will get will get worse rather than better. Laxman is the worst off of the three. He is the only one who has been quite short of runs in both series. Unfortunately for him and for India his career does look like it’s over. He hasn’t had his touch for some time now, and even if he gets it back he is old enough that it is probably not worth waiting for. Of the three, I would drop Laxman immediately. Ideally he would be encouraged to retire, but however the official announcement goes he should not play in India’s next series. Dravid and Tendulkar are more tricky. Tendulkar’s fame is such that he will certainly never be dropped, but it’s unclear if he will have the wherewithal to retire soon. There is also the matter of the ‘100th’ century to consider; as silly as the notion is they still take it seriously. I think he should go soon, however. He still has the chance to go before he is embarrassed and it would improve his legacy if he does so. Dravid is the most interesting of the three. He may have a fatal flaw in his technique, but if there is one person that India should keep to tutor young players it is Dravid. He is the only one who seems to really care about the team and the only one who has been willing to try to dig in and fight when it is needed. None of the others have shown the same type of desire or application and India need their young players to follow Dravid’s lead as opposed to the rest of them. He might benefit from moving down the order, but certainly I would keep him around for as long as is feasible.

The rest of the players are less of a concern, though Dhoni is a poor captain and Adelaide shows that India have a perfectly good replacement for him as wicket-keeper. The problem for the bowlers is their demeanour. They can get early breakthroughs, but once a partnership starts to develop their heads go down and they seem to give up. At what point in the Sydney Test Australia were 37-3, but it wasn’t long after that India seemed to be bowling for the declaration! There is no clear way to fix that problem, though Duncan Fletcher should be able to help. (And if he can’t, he shouldn’t have the job.) A different captain may also help, though the only one with the right mentality is Dravid and he is not a long term solution. For a clear demonstration of the gap in motivation one needs to look no farther than the statements made by Dhoni and Sehwag about the 8-0 combined thrashing and the statements made by Andrew Strauss after England’s horror show in Abu Dhabi. India need more commitment.

India will host England for four Tests in November and if they play the same XI there as they did in Melbourne they will struggle again. In addition to bringing in younger players, they also must find a way to bet those players experience in alien conditions. Suresh Raina was dreadfully exposed against the short ball last summer, but Kohli showed in Australia that it is possible for them to adjust. A season playing county cricket would probably do them a lot of good, though the BCCI are very unlikely to allow them to do so. At the very least they need more ‘A’ tours to places like South Africa and England. Ideally in a year they will have no more than three of their current top seven still playing; they will still have a bedding in period, but they will at least be on the right track.