Michael Vaughan has rated the current Indian team among the most “underachieving sports teams”, saying they fail far too frequently for the talent they possess.

Discussing the result of the South Africa-India Boxing Day Test match, which India lost by an innings inside three days, Fox Sports, Michael Vaughan questioned the lack of achievement of the Indian team, saying that they don’t win enough despite the resources at their disposal.

India recently lost the World Cup final after winning 10 games in a row, eventually going down to Australia. They last won an ICC Trophy in 2013, when MS Dhoni led them to the Champions Trophy triumph. India have made it to the semi-finals of limited-overs global events seven times since then, and have played the World Test Championship final in 2021 and 2023 but have fallen short each time.

They also continued the search for a maiden Test series win in South Africa after succumbing to an innings defeat in the first of two Tests in the series on Thursday.

Vaughan began by questioning Mark Waugh, who was also present in the studio: “Do you think, in terms of cricket, India are one of the most underachieving sports teams in the world?”

Waugh deflected the question back, Vaughan said, “They haven’t won much in recent times. I think they are [an underachieving side]. They don’t win anything. When was the last time they won something? With all the talent they have, all the skill-set.

“They’ve won in Australia twice [Test series in 2018/19 and 2020/21]. Magnificent, but the last few World Cups, been nowhere, in the last few T20 World Cups, been nowhere.”

He proceeded to say that the side has plenty of talent but the performances have not been noteworthy: “They’re a good team, have got plenty of talent but with all the talent they have and the resource they have, I just don’t think they win.”

Waugh echoed Vaughan by saying the Indian team win a lot of games, but have not managed to clinch the big matches, leaving them without a major trophy in over a decade.

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