India-New Zealand Test Series: Stars fail to align

Former wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthik said the onus for the Test series loss to New Zealand was on the senior Indian players, while former batter Sanjay Manjrekar felt that it would be unfair to place the blame on coach Gautam Gambhir.

India lost the second Test to New Zealand by 113 runs in Pune on Saturday as the Black Caps took an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three match series. With this, India’s proud run of 18 consecutive series wins at home since losing to England in 2012-13 ended.

Throughout the two matches, the senior players underperformed. Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli struggled with the bat, while the formidable spin duo of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja also failed to make a significant impact.

“Why shouldn’t it (the onus of the series loss) be on the senior players? They will look at themselves and ask what they could have done better,” Karthik said.

“If you can celebrate the highs and the fans enjoy how important they are when the team wins, then when the losses happen and the brickbats are thrown at you I think they will have the courage to face it,” he added.

New head coach Gambhir has also come in the line of fire after India erred tactically and experienced repeated batting collapses in the two Tests but Manjrekar backed the former opener.

“I will still maintain that the coach has minimal influence on a team, lesser than your 11th weakest player. He does not set foot on the ground, the captain is in charge out there. But you have to applaud him for Washington Sundar’s selection, which was an immediate hit,” Manjrekar said.

Manjrekar questioned Rohit’s “bizarre” decision to send all-rounder Washington Sundar to bat ahead of the in-form Sarfaraz Khan.

“The move to have Sarfaraz bat down the order and sending Sundar above him because he is a left-hander, those kind of things shouldn’t happen. It’s just bizarre. That’s one thing that Rohit needs to be careful of... the T20 thinking of match-ups with left hand and right hand combinations. I think he should just go by the overall quality and ability of players,” Manjrekar said.

When India needed its experienced batters to lead, Rohit could manage a total of 60 runs across four innings (2, 52; 0, 8) while Kohli was a touch better collecting 88 runs (0, 70; 1, 17).

Highlighting Kohli’s absence in the domestic circuit, former India captain Anil Kumble felt the talismanic batter could have prepared well for the long Test calendar by making himself available for the domestic matches.

“Perhaps just one or two innings in a match situation could have helped. Being in an actual game is definitely more beneficial than just practice,” Kumble said.

Former off-spinner Harbhajan Singh said India’s batters have lost a lot of confidence over the years by playing on turning pitches. “Credit to New Zealand for playing the way they did and these were alien conditions and also not a pitch where wear and tear was natural. It was tailor-made for spinners where the ball was supposed to turn from the first hour,” Harbhajan said.

Harbhajan questioned the thought process of the Indian team. “Look at the trend over the last decade. We are playing mostly on turners with the hope that we will win the toss, score 300 and control the game. But we don’t know if we are at the receiving end, if we have the batting to wriggle out on turners. Our batters have lost a lot of confidence playing on these tracks. The biggest example is Ajinkya Rahane. His career suffered because of these kind of surfaces,” Harbhajan said.

“If you prepare turners, you don’t play spinners who can turn the ball on flattest of decks. All you need is bowlers who are accurate. Washington Sundar and Axar Patel can do the job, and you won’t need Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja’s quality. You had Joe Root getting five wickets here some years back. Bring Varun Chakravarthy, who is a white-ball specialist. He will run through sides,” he added.