India's Batting Problems

 

After the successive series losses against NZ at home and in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, I feel it is time to introspect into the constant failures of the Indian batting line up. It is not like one or two players have faltered but everyone has been guilty of complacency and an almost careless attitude. If we look at the ongoing WTC cycle, apart from the away series in WI in 2023 and the home series against England in 2024, the batting has been very poor. Series against SA and Bangladesh are not great to look at since they were low scoring encounters due to the pitch and the conditions. In the last 2 series though, out of the 15 completed innings, India has crossed the 200-run mark on only 6 occasions. Of which 300 was crossed thrice.

The only exception has been Yashasvi Jaiswal. He was phenomenal in 2024 at home as well as away. Home performances might be slightly better than the away ones but those are equally important since everyone around him was finding it very difficult to adapt and perform on those dust-bowls and rank-turners. Only Joe Root scored more runs in Tests in 2024 than Jaiswal. He gave us a glimpse of what he can do and I think he is a very exciting future prospect who will win many matches for India.

Moving on from the only positive, there are a few who showed some hope here and there but were largely inconsistent. Gill and Pant have thrown it away after getting set way too often. Rahul showed promise initially against Aussies only to falter in the latter half of the series. He has also faltered in home conditions. A lot has been said about Rahul's batting position being changed constantly thereby not providing him consistency. Even if the argument is valid, he either opened or played at No.3 which is pretty much the same and still he failed to deliver consistently. He has been sub-par throughout his career and any improvement seems unlikely.

In the series against England in the early parts of 2024, I felt that Gill had gotten his act together and we might see his much awaited coming of age to becoming the next big thing in Indian cricket. I felt he might just be ready to take over the baton in this format since he is the most experienced amongst all the current youngsters. But it was not meant to be as we saw him failing on spinning wickets against NZ owing to some poor technique. Whenever he did get set, he failed to convert his starts into substantial scores. As much as I like to see him bat because he is indeed very graceful and pleasing to the eye, but an average of 35 after 32 tests cannot be justified.

Pant and his style of play have always been topics for debate and there are a few who feel that it is his natural game and we should accept it instead of holding him accountable for letting the team down with his reckless batting. In the first inning at Melbourne, Sunil Gavaskar was furious after Pant's dismissal. Some people may not like what he said because of the way he said it but I feel he was not all that wrong. I know that in the last inning at Sydney, Pant played a blistering inning of 61 off 33 balls, but that does not justify his constant failures due to lack of application. It looks good when it comes off well but very ugly when it does not and unfortunately for him, it does not come off well very often.

Despite failures in the last 3 innings, Nitish Kumar Reddy was very impressive throughout his debut series. Every time there was a collapse, he showed great composure to hang in there and score some extremely vital runs while batting alongside the tail. His century in the boxing day Test was a well-deserved one and he looks like a very promising and exciting prospect. He surely needs to work on his bowling though, which will help him cement his place in the team.

The problem with all these young guys lies in not there intent or aggression but in the shot selection and the technique needed to back their intent. High percentage shots should be identified and utilised in every situation. If there is a fielder in the deep then playing an aerial shot in the same area makes no sense. If the bowler is bowling according to his field, then he should be given respect. Giving respect does not mean simply blocking it out because that approach again makes you ultra defensive and it is tough to survive being ultra defensive unless you are a Dravid or a Pujara.

A player like Travis Head who is also not very strong technically shows us, especially Indians how to play aggressively. For sure, he rides his luck which rarely runs out against India but his shot making is more decisive and rather risk free. He picks his areas very well and plays to his strengths. This does not imply that I expect every Indian batsman to play like Head and a team full of Heads won't win many matches.

From the above, we can clearly see that only Jaiswal and Axar have an average above 40 but for some reason, Axar is always sidelined. Another notable thing here is that out of the players having played at least 20 innings, only Jaiswal has played more than 2000 balls. No one has shown the determination to just hang in there, play it out and put a price tag on their wicket. Sarfaraz has a solitary inning of 150 to show and has played poor shots to throw it away. Jurel hasn’t been given enough opportunities.

There are clear indications that the team is going through a transition and it is high time that the youngsters realise their mistakes and make appropriate amends to their game which will help them achieve greater things because none of these guys are bad players. Even the players waiting in the wings are worthy of an opportunity. Abhimanyu Easwaran, Dhruv Jurel, Devdut Paddikal are all top performers in the domestic circuit and a due chance should be given to them when the regulars are failing. If all of them start to take themselves and their cricket a bit more seriously, I feel the future will be bright.

Now, there are two pairs of legends from the above list missing here but I feel they deserve a separate blog each because of two things. Firstly, they are not youngsters anymore, unlike the guys in focus here. Secondly, their stature and their contribution need to be taken into consideration. So, more on them in the upcoming blogs.