Trouble in paradise! Everything was fine and dandy after the India cricket team won the first Test match of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy and took a 1-0 lead in the series. Two weeks later, everything has flipped on its head. We heard rumours of a rift in Australia’s dressing room after they lost in Perth, and now we are seeing a glimpse of such things in the Indian camp as well.
Time for introspection after Adelaide defeat
Moments after they lost the Pink Ball Test in Adelaide, Team India hit the nets. Losing by 10 wickets and the match ending in under 8 sessions meant they had some time to practice before they moved to Brisbane for the 3rd Test of the tour. While the players toiled hard in the nets, perhaps ruminating about what they did wrong, the coaches engaged in an animated chat.
Team India’s three assistant coaches, Morne Morkel, Abhishek Nayar, and Ryan ten Doeschate, were seen chatting, perhaps discussing where they went wrong and what they could do as they move to The Gabba. Considering the outcome, all three have some work to do.
Morkel is the man in charge of bowling, especially the pacer. Although Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj did well, Harshit Rana was woeful. The tall pacer ended the match without a wicket and went at 5.40 runs an over. Nayar and ten Doeschate have to own up to batting failures. Not just from Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli but also the fact that most batters got a start but neither scored a half-century. Across the two innings in Adelaide, 9 Indian batters scored at least 20 runs, but neither hit a fifty.
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All eyes on Gambhir
Head coach Gautam Gambhir also has some introspection to do. 7 matches in, he’s won 3 and lost 4. Even putting the humiliating 0-3 whitewash at home past, losing by 10 wickets days after beating the same team by 295 runs isn’t exactly great. The momentum has also now shifted towards Australia, and they are primed to win despite Josh Hazlewood currently being injured. It’ll be fascinating to see how Gambhir responds.
India’s squad for Australia Test series
Rohit Sharma (c), Jasprit Bumrah (vc), Shubman Gill, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Devdutt Padikkal, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant (wk), Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar
Reserves: Mukesh Kumar, Navdeep Saini, Yash Dayal
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