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While the world moves towards faster-paced entertainment to satisfy their jollies, Test Cricket serves as a relic of simpler times and a window into times of plainer pleasures. Or rather, it should.
New Zealand’s Aijaz Patel, second left without cap, celebrates with teammates after the dismissal of India’s Rishab Pant, left, during the third day of the third cricket test match between India and New Zealand at Wankhede Stadium, in Mumbai, India, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024.(AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)
The New Zealand cricket team’s whitewash of their Indian counterparts away from home in a Test series will go down in local folklore as a watershed moment in the proud cricketing tradition of the Kiwis as the Tom Latham-led side scaled a hitherto unconquered peak.
The Kiwis’ unprecedented 3-0 triumph against a certified giant of the sport on soil touted to be an impenetrable fortress sent shockwaves eliciting starkly contrasting emotions from either camp and their faithful.
The most agonising aspect of the hammering India received at the hands of the tourists probably lies in the nature of the defeats that come about as the Kiwis’ unfancied unit put the hosts to shame. First, they lost out to the New Zealand pace attack at Bengaluru, before finishing second to the their spinners in the second Test at Pune. The travellers hit the final nail in with a triumph at the Mecca of Indian Cricket to complete a resounding romp that would reverberate, if not shape, across the annals of New Zealand Cricket.
Now, the beauty of sport lies in the unpredictable nature of the spectacle and the anomalies that spring up. And it would be rather cruel to rip into a side that has mastered cricket in whites in the better of the last decade. However, the characteristics demonstrated by the hosts during the rout ring alarms bells, calling for a much closer inspection of things in play.
As any wise man would agree, there is no finer solution for most predicaments than father time, and the new head coach Gautam Gambhir deserved leeway in terms of acclimatisation to the environment and the camp.
Alas, it was heartbreaking to see the man who helped fly the Indian flag down under during his heyday with some crafty willow work, slinking away in disappointment as the visitors put the Indian side to the sword across departments.
Gone In A Session!
The Indian side, which had comprehensively downed neighbours Bangladesh in coming into the New Zealand series, should have paid heed to the ominous sign that reared up during their disastrous 46-run showing in the very first innings of the series as the the visiting pace attack ran through the Indian batting order like a size eleven ball charging towards pins.
Will O’Rourke, Matt Henry and Tim Southee bundled the Indian batter out for a sub-50 total before the dust settled on the nation’s daily hustle.
An embarrassing start to a series that was booked as a write-away win. The decision to bat first at a damp M Chinnaswamy Stadium played right into the forte of the New Zealand team that seemed to be rubbing their plans with the prospect of being handed the new ball in familiar feeling conditions. And they made the best possible use of it as the emulative ‘home conditions’ buoyed the NZ seamers.
As many as five batters including Virat Kohli, KL Rahul and Ravindra Jadeja were sent back to the hut before being able to get off the mark in a sorry showing. And all before the sun broke as Devon Conway essayed a splendid demonstration in batting. The southpaw missed out on a deserved century as he opted for an unnecessary reverse sweep and was castled.
And then came a ‘Bengaluru hudga‘ by ancestry anyway, to the fore as Rachin Ravindra broke the triple-figure barrier. Tim Southee chipped in with a half-century with the willow as the New Zealand batting unit added insult to India’s injury.
India looked for a way back into the game as skipper Rohit Sharma, Kohli added fifties, with a daddy ton from Sarfaraz Khan and Rishabh Pant missing out on a century by a single run. However, it proved to be a day late and a penny short as New Zealand chased down the game with eight wickets to spare.
A huge upset, but not a calamity surely, yes? Again, let me remind you of the romance between sport and idiosyncrasies. And the beauty in discrepancies.
Rohit soldiered up and accepted his mistakes as a captain and as a batter, which was commendable. Reminiscent of world-beating Australian sides of days past even.
Spin It To Win It – Kiwi Flavoured!
The second Test, a chance at redemption and a shot at restoring damaged pride moved to Pune. A different surface in contrast to the opener and a different result in waiting? Right? What could go wrong?
Apparently, a whole lot including a surrender of the series to a touring side.
The second Test turned out to be the spinners’ day out, unfortunately for the home crowd, the protagonist turned out to be a Kiwi.
Mitchell Santner, whom New Zealand had opted to bench during the first iteration, was brought into the fold and he wreaked havoc on the Indian batters with his crafty left arm.
The Indian crowd did get what they paid for as spinners Washington Sundar, Ravichandran Ashwin and Jadeja picked up 19 of the possible New Zealand wickets in the game, but were outdone by Santner’s seven-for in the first and six-fer in the second innings.
New Zealand had done the impossible. They had breached Fortress India. They wrapped up the series with a game to spare. History was scripted that day with India on the wrong side of the result.
Santner tormented the Indian batters with the leather in hand and came out with a detailed breakdown of what he did in a manner of schooling the hosts on their own territory in what felt like rubbing salt on an open wound.
India, the team that served up spinners nightmares during the times of Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Saurav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman, appeared absolutely impotent against spin on home soil. A chaotic fall.
Where has the art of playing spin using your feet gone?
And if the trope continues, what hope does the current crop have against the Aussies at home in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy?
Strike One, Strike Two, Strike Three! And Out!
With multiple questions hanging over the team’s head, the final Test of the series rolled around to the fabled turf of Wankhede as the Mumbai and the wider Indian fraternity hoped for a consolation win in a forgettable series.
In a nutshell, New Zealand took the driver’s seat on opening day with fifties from Daryl Mitchell and Will Young before India turned the tables on Day 2 in an attempt to salvage a game and some pride before handing over the trophy to the tourists as Shubman Gill and Pant had fighting half-centuries.
India ended the second day of the final Test in a position to pull something back from the foregone conclusion but let the third game slip through their fingers in dramatic fashion as a New Zealand spinner, not Santner this time, but Ajaz Patel added six-second innings wickets to his first innings five-wicket haul to walk out the hero in a whitewash cause of India.
Perhaps what worries most Indians more than the calamitous result against The BlackCaps is the manner in which the defeat came across.
The approach to Test cricket has witnessed alterations in terms of culture in the recent decade as a more attacking version of the game is being courted by multiple nations in an attempt to revolutionise the classical format.
However, Test Cricket is a penance. The beauty of the longest format of the game lies in the patience that it demands.
And rather irksomely, the days of dropping your jaw in shock if a team batting first can’t make it to nearly a day and a half, let’s say five sessions, without being bundled out seem long gone.
And there lies the cultural predicament with the Indian side and maybe with modern-day cricket itself.
A paradigm shift that seems rather unnecessary.
While the world moves towards faster-paced entertainment to satisfy their jollies, Test cricket serves as a relic and a window to times of simpler pleasures.
And there seems no reason, barring the shrinking attention spans of the human race, to tinker with the testaments that hold the game in high stead. Especially not when the example of the English team’s ‘Bazball’ serves as a reminder of the dangers lurking at the end of that winding path.
For most part of the New Zealand series, the Indian unit resembled a rag-tag team filled with risk-taking, stroke-making individuals in a rush to get their runs.
A taste for instant gratification possibly from the more colourful, shorter formats of the game prevalent and more ‘in-tune’ with the evolving times, seems to have spilt over to the Test whites.
The breakneck-paced white ball duties have seemingly pushed the love for the red cherry back a peg. While this could be a justifiable parameter for a viewer, it is one that is utterly unacceptable from a player’s shoes, especially in a nation where donning the famous baggy cap is a matter of pride.
‘The Rush’ mentality to make the scoreboard tick at an accelerated pace has had a serious ramification on the approach of the batter to the ball as evident by some of the erratic shots the batters opted for and the eccentricity of their dismissals at the hands of the New Zealand bowlers.
And this phenomenon has given rise to the general public waking up to the pitfalls of the change in culture as calls for the inclusion of seasoned batters Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane seem to get louder and louder.
Throughout the New Zealand series it appeared as though no Indian batter was interested in seeing out the new ball or witnessing it get old while at the crease. No player to do the ‘heavy lifting and dirty work’ per se as nobody stood the Test of the Kiwis, let alone the test of time.
However ironic that sounds, let me assure you it is highlighted further in Test whites.
Despite the obvious quality available in the big-name tags that fly the banner of Indian Test cricket now, what has probably brought about the national embarrassment is the lack of Test rhythm.
Back in the day, legendary names such as Tendulkar and Sunil Gavaskar would fly down to represent Mumbai in the domestic circuit including the Duleep Trophy, Ranji Trophy and Irani Cup.
Transpose it to modern days and make of that what you will, but be assured of the fact that there is no place-holder for actual match-preparation through immersive emulation.
With more questions than answers at the moment and a very real possibility of another whitewash in Test whites for Rohit and Co. staring them in the eye, the solutions seem to be lurking within.
And as the famous quote goes, it is time for GG’s men to head back to the drawing board and begin from scratch.