Five reasons why the Indian batsmen failed in the first Test

Shikhar Dhawan

Once again, our brave captain MS Dhoni displayed his courage, when he opted to bat first – relying on the batting skills of Team India. But contrary to the expectations of millions of diehard fans, our batting collapsed without giving much of a fight, except Kohli and Rahane. This tendency of giving up is least expected, especially from the top order batsmen. Shikhar Dhawan and Murali Vijay once again threw their wickets in vain. Pujara became the victim of hard luck when he got run out off a fumble. That was really unfortunate.

Also, the fall of Rohit Sharma in a rather careless manner has put up a question mark on his temperament. In fact, the patience which is required to play under challenging conditions was totally missing. MS Dhoni could have contributed a little more but then it is not fair to expect miracles every time.

Another area of vital importance is that we have not been able to develop a trustworthy and capable all rounder and we are paying a big price for this particular shortcoming. So here are the five reasons why our batting failed:

1) Inconsistency

This is an age old problem with team India’s batsmen. When a team decides to play with just four regular bowlers, that too against a known strong opposition, the sanctity of this very decision of depending on 7 batsmen, is totally finished if most of our batsmen fall like playing cards! It appears that the majority of our batsmen have lost their rhythm! Getting into the 20s and 30s and then getting out does not help anyone!

2) Over confidence

Some times it is clearly visible that Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma have become a little complacent. I personally feel that Murali Vijay needs expert counseling as to how to become confident.

3) Lost Focus

This is really very important. Almost all our batsmen (except Kohli, Rahane and Pujara) were struggling to survive. I do not have stats here but all of them were beaten so many times – they were playing like apprentices. The will power to resist was not there. Everyone was struggling to somehow save his wicket. This is especially a poor show given the fact that we had played two ODIs before and by now should have become familiar with the bowling!

4) Missing spirit of collective responsibility

When any batting line up fails to function as one integrated unit, the outcome can never be positive. Up till a few days back, team India had a wonderful chemistry between the players and our team members complemented each other – rotating strike in the need of hour. Captain MSD used to infuse a tremendous fighting spirit. But recently the collectiveness has fallen. Players like Dhawan and Rohit need to be more responsible.

5) Inexperience

In addition to the above, it remains a hard core fact that most of our young players do not have experience of the fast pitches. In the absence of a practice match, it became really difficult for them to counter the pace attack.

However, a team which aspires to win the next world cup needs to recover quickly before the damage becomes collateral.