Australia Tour: A failure of leadership, not just batting

Virat Kohli gave us a glimpse of what was possible on this tour of Australia.

It’s not just that he is the only one to have got a century; it’s the manner of his batting, both at Perth and Adelaide, that made it obvious we needed two or three more players like him in the team, and that it was a canard to claim we didn’t have the talent to replace the bunch of oldies getting thrashed abroad match after match, series after series.

What marked Kohli out was his confidence. With tons of runs in one-dayers under his belt, he refused to be overawed by the Aussies on difficult, alien pitches. He improved with every game and played the ball on merit, attacking whenever he could but also learning to leave the away-going ball outside off-stump. He wasn’t poking and prodding about with a milestone in mind or a reputation to save.

It was obvious after the 4-0 whitewash in England that we had to make changes to at least remain competitive abroad. But the selectors did not give a chance to any of the talented batsmen who have been doing so well in the one-dayers and IPL for so long. Only the number six slot was available and Kohli was lucky to get the nod. He has made the most of it by proving himself on foreign soil and we have one good prospect for the future. There could easily have been two or three more like him. That would not only have made the series less one-sided, it would also have set India well on the way to rebuilding the team.

What is even more perplexing is the tour selection panel’s refusal to make a single change in the batting lineup after the losses in Melbourne and Sydney.
 
We made the point in this column after the Sydney innings defeat that it would be better to lose with younger men; at least we would gain valuable experience for the future. After the first day at Perth, when it was obvious we were in for another innings defeat, we asked why the talented Rohit Sharma was a mere spectator to this fiasco. Still, in Adelaide the team persisted with the same lineup and is now on the verge of suffering a third humiliating defeat in a row.

The captain, MS Dhoni, vice-captain Virender Sehwag and coach Duncan Fletcher are answerable for this because they select the playing eleven during the tour.

They have shown themselves incapable of leading the side. Not only did they refuse to give Rohit a chance even in the fourth Test, with the series already lost so badly, they did not even try a change in the batting order.

Both in Perth and Adelaide, Kohli ran out of partners; surely he could have been pushed up the order at least in the second innings at Adelaide.

The leadership failed in other respects too, the most glaring being the inept, defensive field settings. Sehwag, like Dhoni in the previous Tests, left vital catching positions vacant at crucial times. Ricky Ponting, the top scorer in Adelaide, gave simple catches that sailed through the empty first slip at a comfortable chest height in both the first innings and the second. This happened time and again during the series, starting from Melbourne where we let the Aussies off the hook at least thrice. So it won’t do to simply drop a few batsmen who should have made way long back. We need a new coach, a new Test captain and a vice-captain who will be much more proactive and intelligent than this lot has been. We need selectors who will identify new talent and make changes in time. Granted we may never match the Aussies in athleticism, but surely India can muster a brains trust that is on par with the best in the world.