Deconstructing Kolkata Test defeat: Introspection time for Team India

There is more to it than what meets the eye as one deconstructs the reasons for India's defeat in the opening cricket Test against South Africa in Kolkata.

As India were dealt a 'Harmer blow' at Eden Gardens, pundits and aficionados have started soul-searching methods while the keyboard warriors, as usual, have gone hammer and tongs at coach Gautam Gambhir and Co.

'One swallow doesn't make a summer' goes the adage. But South Africa's win, inside three days in Kolkata, could be a harbinger of things in store for Indian cricket.

The Proteas, despite being world No.1 side, started as underdogs. But Temba Bavuma & Co gave India a taste of their medicine as they 'spun' them out of the Test with Simon Harmer delivering the killer blow with an eight-wicket Test haul which earned him the Player of the Match honour.

Building a turning track is no more guarantee for success as Shubman Gill & Co found it out at Eden Gardens where South African spinners claimed 12 of the 18 Indian wickets in the match exposing the home batters' vulnerabilities against the turning ball.

There was a time when nimble-footed and supple-wristed Indian batters dominated spin.

But, it looks as though, spin which has been India's traditional strength, has now become their 'Achilles heel'.

It was not long ago that India were called 'Lions at Home and Lambs Abroad' for their abysmal overseas record. In the early 90's India used to thrive on spin-friendly pitches at home and rattle the opposition while their batters came a cropper when exposed to pace, swing and seaming conditions abroad.

Things changed a lot post the John Wright-Sourav Ganguly era, with India starting winning Test matches and even series' abroad.

But cracks appeared as India's aura of invincibility at home started waning. It started with in 2012 Mumbai Test loss to England where spinners Monty Panesar and Graeme Swann shared the 10 wickets among them.

In the 2017 Pune Test against Australia, it was unheralded Steve O' Keefe who spun a web around them.

2024 saw batters' frailty against spinners being exposed severely as messers Mitchell Santner and Ajaz Patel shared 28 wickets in the three-match series in which India were whitewashed at home for the first time in almost two-and-a half decades.

Visiting spinners have had their time on the 'bunsen burners' of India — Phil Edmonds, John Embury, Abdul Qadir, Tauseef Ahmed, John Bracewell, Muttaiah Muralitharan, Shaun Udal, Swann, Panesar, Santner, Patel, O' Keefe and now Harmer has also joined the 'August club.'

But the cause of the worry is the latest defeat is the inability of Indian batters to put their best foot forward, against the turning ball.

From Sunil Gavaskar to Mohinder Amarnath to Sachin Tendulkar to Rahul Dravid to Cheteshwar Pujara, India had batters of class to play the tweakers.

Those were the days when even during non Test match days, the Indians played lot of four-day fixtures, including the County Championship, in England.

But cricket these days is in a state of transformation. A growing surfeit of T20s and the decline of 50-overs games has put future of Test cricket in limbo.

Gone are the days when you find batters, who would grind it out and build an innings brick-by-brick — someone like Graham Gooch or Javed Miandad.

But with the advent of T20 cricket, where multi-talented players are more in demand, Test cricket is finding it difficult to find batters who can play long innings and can tackle spin effectively.

Also with multi tasking players more in demand, even team composition has gone in for a toss.

Just take a look at India's playing XI at Eden where they fielded four specialist spinners (for the first time since 2012 Nagpur Test against England) of which three of them could bat with one penciled in at the coveted No.3 slot!

This is not to belittle Washington Sundar, who has a Test hundred to his name, and looked the only batter who looked competent enough to face Harmer and Keshav Maharaj on a rank turner on Day 3.

Playing six bowlers is always a luxury as there is every chance of one or two of them, getting under-bowled and Sundar did not getting to bowl in Proteas' second innings is a class example.

Also the decision to play two specialist keepers, with one pure as a batter based on his recent form defies logic. Of course India have done it in the past — Chandrakant Pandit and Kiran More, MS Dhoni and Dinesh Karthik — but the circumstances were different.

The decision to leave out Karun Nair, who has amassed tons of runs in domestic cricket and is good at home where he could grind it out and play a long innings only because of his failures in the swinging conditions in the Old Blighty defies logic.

India had two extra batters in the reserves — Sai Sudarshan and Devdutt Padikkal — who were carrying drinks. Not that they would have done wonders, but still you need specialists to get the job done and not bits-and-pieces players, especially in the longer format of the game.

All is not lost for India. They still have time to recoup and bounce back quickly in the second Test at Guwahati which begins on Saturday (November 22).

It is presumed that in India, half of your job is done if you win the toss. But gone are those days. It's introspection time for Team India and the mandarins at Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), especially in Test cricket. Their record in shorter formats are good in recent times. But it is in Test cricket — which is meant to be the ultimate test of skill and character of a player — that they need to raise the bar.

For that short-term measures will not work. Cricketers who play in this format need to play more four-day fixtures and need to how to play long innings. Reverse and slog sweep sixes — which are T20s contributions to Test cricket, may get the crowd going, but to get good results, the good-old ways which include 'padding up' to spinners need to be persisted with. Game on!