India's Home Defeat After 4331 Days: Is it Gambhir's Fault? Rohit's? Or a Long-Unchecked Problem?

Rohit Sharma made an insightful point when he mentioned that it's natural for teams to experience failures and for opponents to secure victories in India. This sentiment held weight as India's streak of 18 consecutive series wins at home came to an end, showcasing the unpredictable nature of the game.

New Zealand captain Tom Latham echoed his counterpart’s views by insisting that India hadn’t overnight become a bad side because they had lost two Tests in a row for the first time in nearly a dozen years. Latham wasn’t just being kind and gracious in victory.

There are multiple reasons why India have been the Final Frontier for so many teams over so many years. They know their conditions extremely well, yes, but so do others who play in their own backyards. What they have done all these years to maintain the aura of invincibility is be brave and resilient, find ways to clinch the crunch moments, respond positively to being put under pressure and punish oppositions for their temerity in challenging them on their own patch.

Most of these character traits that have come to be taken for granted, almost, have been conspicuously absent over the last ten days. Except for a stirring passage during their second innings in Bengaluru when they responded to trailing by 356 in the first innings with an extraordinary display of stroke-making (400 for three in 80 overs), India have been listless and uninspiring, almost as if they have been taken by surprise by the ferocity with which New Zealand have come at them. They have looked short on ideas and imagination and creativity and pushback, for which they have been punished ruthlessly by Latham’s unassuming bunch.

Post-mortems have already begun, talk of heads rolling and an overall shake-up has gathered pace in the aftermath of the 113-run drubbing in Pune that has made this New Zealand group the first to win a Test series in India since 2012-13. Fingers are being pointed at established superstars who haven’t quite pulled their weight and even though Rohit pointed to pedigree and the volume of work of the big boys without taking names, it is inevitable that the debate will not die down, particularly because this same set figures prominently in the 18-member party to travel to Australia next month for five Tests.

Are many superstars past their sell-by date? Are India an ageing outfit desperately in need of fresh blood, energetic legs and unburdened minds? Is the need to apportion responsibility, if not blame, after two admittedly ordinary display so overwhelming that perestroika is inevitable? Do these two results come as an ominous portent of what lies in store Down Under, where India have won the last two series?

These are questions that can be answered either with the heart or with the head. Are India an ageing side? The captain is 37, his predecessor will turn 36 in ten days’ time and the team’s leading wicket-taker celebrated his 38th birthday a month and a half back. In cricketing terms, they are far closer to the end of their careers than the beginning, but they aren’t spent forces yet. Rohit made two centuries at the start of the year in three Tests against England, apart from setting the tone at the start of the innings time after time during India’s T20 World Cup-winning march. Virat Kohli was the Player of the Final in the same tournament but hasn’t quite had the same sustained impact as in the past. And R Ashwin was the Player of the Series just last month against Bangladesh, scoring runs and taking wickets for fun.

To borrow from Latham, can they become bad players overnight? And to borrow from Rohit, they are allowed the odd run of failures. More than anyone else, these individuals themselves know that they can’t bank on reputation and past performances alone to keep bailing them out. They are fiercely proud cricketers, but that doesn’t absolve them of blame when things don’t go right because they are expected to be the leaders in whose wake the youngsters can sail and find their feet and blossom and eventually step out of the shadows.

The sands of time don’t stay still for anyone. They didn’t for Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar, for Anil Kumble and Kapil Dev. These two Test losses have come as a rude awakening; before they mushroom into something more debilitating, the slide must be checked. Australia will provide more definitive answers about the immediate as well as the long-term future, but the present can’t be wished away, harsh reality can’t be conveniently ignored.