3 primary reasons why India lost the series to England
England completed the series win over India, comfortably winning the 4th Test by 60 runs to take an unassailable 3-1 lead in the 5 Test series, with one match still to go.
Sam Curran's defiant runs in the face of an England collapse in the 1st innings played a pivotal role in England's win as he pushed what would have been a 150 all out to a par score, and then Moeen Ali ran through the Indian batting line up in both of India's innings to finish with 9 wickets from the match, and seal the win for England.
For India, it was an all too familiar story on overseas tours, and the no. 1 side in the world have no choice but to reflect back on yet another story of what could have been.
It was not all doom and gloom for India on this tour and the Indian seam bowling delivered in all the Tests, and at times even out bowled their English counterparts for large portions of the series.
However, the series is 3-1 to England and let's look at why things went wrong, yet again for India on an overseas tour.
Indian batsmen become indispensable too easily
The Indian batsmen are assured of their places in the XI based on past good performances for far too long. Till recently Murali Vijay was a regular in the playing XI based on some good scores he had in 2014/2015.
KL Rahul continues to be given chances in the Indian Test team largely based on the one Test 100 he scored in Australia in 2015.
Rahul has a lot of good qualities as a batsman, and he could very well go on to have a stellar white ball career for India, but as far as red ball cricket goes, he has done little with the bat to continue to be a regular in the playing XI.
In the 13 innings he has played in SA and England, he has an avg. of 15.15. How could anyone possibly explain his continuous selection to play test cricket for India?
Then there is the case of Ajinkya Rahane, who is treated as an indispensable pillar of the Indian Test team. No one will deny that he scored a fine 50 in testing conditions in the final innings but since 01 Jan 2017, Rahane's avg. with the bat is a very pedestrian 31.14 in 29 innings.
It begs the question how someone with such distinctly ordinary stats over such a large sample pool of 29 innings, is so assured of a place in India's Test team, let alone how he is considered an indispensable member of the team.
Since the start of 2018, his avg is 26.09 in 11 innings. His continued selection is tough to explain. He is another batsman in this team who seems to have made a career out of that one 100 he scored on a difficult pitch in 2014 at Lord's.
These batsmen are keeping out some very fine talents like Vihari, Prithvi Shaw and Karun Nair, who had to make way after scoring a 300 on Test debut, and hasn't been able to get back in the playing XI, despite the fact that the batsmen in the XI are delivering some very very ordinary numbers.
Shikhar Dhawan has been given enough opportunities and Indian cricket fans will have to accept that Dhawan is a stellar opener in Asia (avg of 61 in Tests in Asia), but just doesn't have the technique to deliver overseas.
Even Cheteshwar Pujara had very poor stats in overseas Tests, but he did score a superlative 100 in the 1st inns, so we will leave Pujara out of this discussion for now.
Indian Test team spot cannot be secured so easily and batsmen must continue to perform at a high level to retain their spots. They cannot score one good 100 and then kick back and relax, assured of the fact that, that one good knock will secure their spot in the XI for eons to come, as seems to be happening currently.
Indian Test team is not a clique and cannot be treated like one. Either perform in every series or you make way for someone else, should be the norm.
The upcoming Test series against West Indies in India presents a perfect opportunity to introduce new faces like Prithvi Shaw, Vihari to Test cricket and reintroduce Karun Nair to the XI as well.
From there this new look team should be taken to the tour to Australia instead of sticking with the likes of KL Rahul, Rahane and Shikhar Dhawan, who have been inconsistent, if one is polite, and not good enough if one is brutally honest.