India’s Cricketing Hangover: When White-Ball Glory Leads to Red-Ball Blues

India’s biggest issue at the end of the 0-3 series defeat is the attitude and form of our superstars.

What the India vs New Zealand series showed us.

(Photo: BCCI)

As the dust settles on India’s embarrassing 0-3 whitewash at the hands of the unheralded New Zealand line-up, the numbers at the end of the series are revealing.

India’s Rishabh Pant tops the batting charts, and spinners Washington Sundar and Ravindra Jadeja top the bowling charts.

Yet, New Zealand are the deserved winners of the series, because it was a complete team effort, unlike India's sloppy display which seemed very individualistic.

We Need To Talk About Rohit-Kohli

India’s biggest issue at the end of the series defeat is the attitude and form of our superstars.

Skipper Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli appeared woefully out of touch, exposing the biggest chink in the Indian line-up. Somehow, because the two appeared out of tune, the batting looked brittle and always ready for a collapse.

The two superstars have been given complete leeway by the powers that be as that is what happens in India once you win a white-ball World Cup or a major limited-overs event. They start dictating the terms and everything they do is an event. The two were given a break from the Duleep Trophy, while everyone else turned up for the event.

Then, they kept taking regular breaks and turned up just days before the Test series against New Zealand. It was almost as if they could switch on and switch off at will. Contrast this to the approach that the Aussies have adopted before the Border-Gavaskar Trophy against India. They have a plan whereby all their top players have played a couple of rounds of the Sheffield Shield or other domestic events. They want their players to be in the best shape possible before the series against India.

India, on the other hand, has also cancelled a tour game against their India A squad in Australia. They have instead opted for a centre wicket practice in Perth. This is the attitude that has prevailed for the past decade in Indian cricket, especially when on tours. With this kind of attitude, you can succeed sometimes, but not always. The last time India played a five-Test series in Australia, in 1991-92, there was a similar chaotic build-up resulting in a 0-4 result.

History is Repeating Itself

The other big issue as always is the easy way in which we confuse formats.

India became the T20 World Cup champion in June 2024, but they are the best team only in the shortest format. Their dominance does not extend to other formats where different skills are required. India has lost an ODI series to Sri Lanka for the first time since 1997 post the T20 World Cup win, and now the Test series to New Zealand at home.

This is what happens in India, where Test cricket usually suffers after a limited-overs triumph. India’s 1983 World Cup-winning captain Kapil Dev could not win a single Test or a series for three years. In 2011, after the heroics of MS Dhoni and his team at the Wankhede Stadium, India was in complete disarray in Test cricket. The reason was simple. India especially under Dhoni, felt that they are the best across all formats of cricket, rather than just of the ODI format! That same attitude is prevalent now.

The number of players playing just Tests is reasonably high even now, but it is the superstar culture that noted historian Ramachandra Guha bemoaned about, which has hurt India.

India’s previous team management, led by former head coach Rahul Dravid, was keen to march the Test line-up into a new era. They first benched Wriddhiman Saha and Ishant Sharma. Then, they eased out Umesh Yadav from the line-up.

Then, the likes of Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane were moved out. So much so that even when Kohli was not available for the England series earlier this year, the team management still threw their weight behind the younger players like Sarfaraz Khan, Rajat Patidar, and Devdutt Padikkal.

The experienced KL Rahul was junked during the ongoing New Zealand series. Rahul is currently the biggest villain in Indian cricket. But even he cannot be blamed for the whitewash at the hands of this New Zealand line-up.

India’s Record Against NZ Requires Serious Introspection

The fact is that New Zealand is always underestimated by India.

India only started touring New Zealand in 1967-68, some 35 years after it started playing international cricket. India has won just five Tests in New Zealand in 25 contests, which is in stark contrast to Pakistan’s 10 wins out of 33 games in the same time frame built around the two Ws – Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis.

India’s last two Test series (in 2013-14 and in 2019-20) in New Zealand ended in defeats, but there was no outrage or postmortem. The last defeat in 2019-20 was also a whitewash (0-2), but in New Zealand. But because the New Zealand defeats happened in early March of 2014 and 2020, there is no deeper analysis about it because then it is time for ‘India ka tyohaar,’ so why bother about the small matter of a Test series defeat?

Since that defeat in New Zealand in 2020, the Blackcaps have had a complete hold over India in Tests. They have played eight Tests and won six, including the 3-0 series triumph this time, and of course, the World Test Championship (WTC) final in 2021.

This record needs serious introspection, but is there going to be one?

Digging Deep

The whole focus, as always, will be on white-ball cricket; hence you have a nondescript T20I series in South Africa almost coinciding with the Test series in Australia. The two squads are different, but the move shows the priority of the powers that be, who want to make hay while the sun shines. India can show that they have enough depth in terms of talent, but it does not have the results to back it up.

Even in the heyday of Virat Kohli as Test captain with the bombastic Ravi Shastri as head coach, India did not win a Test series in England, South Africa, and New Zealand. These kinds of numbers were never spelt out, only bombasts were handed out to us at regular intervals.

There is a deeper malaise in Indian red-ball cricket, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic ate up a season or two of the Ranji Trophy.

The India A system was completely stalled for some inexplicable reason. So, the supply line has dried up completely. There was haste in moving on some of the senior stars even when the younger replacements were never of the same ability.

The Unforeseen Decay

The heroics of Brisbane 2021 became the only calling card of India in Test cricket in the past five years. All the gains of the previous decade were then frittered away systematically starting from the early exit from England in 2021 and then the series loss in South Africa in 2021-22.

This has continued ever since.

This series also showed that the men who have been bailing the Test line-up at home with both bat and ball, i.e. Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin, cannot do so always. There were signs that this could happen against Australia last year and earlier this year against England, but for it to stare at us in this way was never foreseen.

The last time India toured Australia after a Test series against New Zealand at home was back in 1999-2000. The then BCCI secretary, the late JY Lele, famously or infamously predicted a 0-3 whitewash in Australia. The 0-3 defeat happened almost on cue, even though Lele denied he ever made that prediction.

In 2024, however, only a brave man would make a prophecy of a hat-trick of series triumphs by the Indian squad in Australia. 

(Chandresh Narayanan is a senior cricket writer. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)