The Positives and the Downsides for the Indian Test Team in 2018

3. Meek surrender of the Indian tail

As against the opposition tail wagging, the Indian tailenders simply gifted their wickets without making any useful contribution. At all times the Indian tail never had the stomach to fight it out which was reflected in the margin of defeats.

Tailenders like Ishant, Shami and Bumrah, although excellent with the ball, never made an effort to stay at the wicket and add some crucial runs to the team's total.

4.Overreliance on the toss of the coin and inability to chase down targets

India are over-reliant on the toss of the coin

Team India, being the No 1 Test team in the world, are expected to equip themselves to handle all adverse conditions. But of late, they have become over-reliant on the coin falling in their favor.

In the seven matches that India won in the year, except in one match against the West Indies at home, India won all the other 6 matches batting first. Conversely, in all the 7 matches that India lost during the year, the one common factor was that in all those matches they were batting second.

At Cape Town, India failed to chase down 207 and at Edgbaston, they faltered yet again during the chase of 194. The inherent weakness of the Indian batsmen to chase down gettable targets was a big negative for Team India in 2018.