Having just succumbed to a historic low against New Zealand, India walk into an Australia tour knee-deep in issues. Two weeks away from the first Test, the signs are not good.
The promotions have long begun. The hashtags are out, the B-rolls have been stacked up, the broadcasters have started appending “#TheToughestRivalry” to anything and everything. The pundit predictions are rolling in. The touring party has been announced.
“Tough” is a loose term to define the India-Australia rivalry. It’s top-of-the-money, blockbuster stuff, from ticket sales to TV viewership and everything in between. Some even say it comes about to save Test cricket every two years.
The lead-up, however, has been ominous for the Indian team.
A home series against New Zealand was set to be a largely trouble-free precursor to the big one, weeks after a 2-0 sweep of Bangladesh. Well, that did not happen. Uno-reversed and whitewashed, it left India with a deflated feel, reeling from the dismantling of a proud home record that stood for three US President terms.
It’s huge, much bigger than a mere digit switch in the losses column. A tour of Australia couldn’t have come at a worse time.
For starters, it's a difficult place to tour. The Aussies have lost just about 12 per cent of their home Tests this century, the lowest among all teams. Six of their 17 have been to India across four different Test series, including two very famous series losses to them in 2018-19 and 2020-21.
This time, though, India's pursuit of a hat-trick is peppered with a mash-up of challenges.
Let’s start from the top. Rohit Sharma may miss one, maybe two Tests at the start, leaving India in a slightly similar situation to 2020-21. Then, Kohli had to fly back after the first Test for the birth of his child, leaving in his wake the horrors of 36-9. While it all turned out well in the end, beyond coincidence, it’s never good to have your permanent captain absent through half an Australian tour. At 37, his future and legacy depend on this tour.
It’s not the first time Jasprit Bumrah will be filling in for him, having held the post during the rescheduled fifth England Test two summers ago. It remains the only Test he has led in, in a very short captaincy career (of any level).
An unwell Bumrah sat out of the third Test of India’s 0-3 drubbing, after which Rohit admitted he was not at his best as a captain, and with the bat. The general criticism of his leadership was that he was too defensive, often keeping spread-out fields to loosen pressure on the touring team. In a year that has seen 17 overseas wins and only one draw, carrying that mentality into ruthless Australia will have very obvious side effects.
“Giving up is not in our vocabulary,” is what Ravi Shastri had said after the 2021 win, encapsulating the maxim of that Test team. Having foregone a home Test series as recently and as meekly will require serious retrospection, and course-correction, ahead of their flight to Perth.
