Australia vs India 2018-19: When will India get rid of the same old '20/2' story?
Yet again, Indian openers traveling abroad have failed to deliver. Yet again, No. 3 and No. 4 are arriving at the crease within an hour of play. And yet again, every Indian fan is disappointed!
Year 2018 was regarded as “the real challenge” for the "new" India that showed promise and hunger through their impeccable performances over the previous 18 months within the subcontinent. Finally, as India embarked on tours to South Africa, England and Australia, the time had come to stamp their authority outside their comfort zone and truly earn the respect for being the No. 1 team in Test cricket.
The fans anticipated a better performance – a solid start by the openers, for starters - but unfortunately for them, history repeated itself. The Indian openers once again could not transform their promise into performance, and we were back to the good (bad) old days of seeing the scoreboard read 20/2 - a sight we are so accustomed to seeing!
It's quite shocking and even embarrassing to some extent that a nation with population of over a billion, which continues to churn out batsmen one after another for every format, has not managed to discover a few gentlemen to stand up against opponents in their own den. Apart from a very brief Sehwag-Gambhir phase, Indian openers have consistently struggled overseas to provide decent starts.
At the beginning of the year 2018, we could not have imagined India's talented openers KL Rahul and Murali Vijay both being dropped for a high intensity game against Australia on Boxing Day. In their place, the debutant Mayank Agarwal and the makeshift opener Hanuma Vihari - playing in his 3rd game - opened the innings.
That says a lot about the current state of openers available in the Indian circuit.
In the coming days, the BCCI should really focus on discovering the talent that will provide India a strong start, not just within the subcontinent, but also overseas. If they don't do that, the openers will just continue to complete the formalities, and start the innings with no major contribution.
And the scoreboard would continue to read 20/2.