Why India should look at changing their strategy against Australia

After the struggles of South Africa and England, it is quite evident that Indian batting is struggling in alien conditions. It is not only the swinging conditions of England which exposed the chinks in their armour they also struggled in South Africa where there was plenty of seam and bounce.

In spite of all these failures, the confidence of the team management in the same batting line-up is baffling, to say the least. Not even once the team management has acknowledged the need for overhauling this consistently failing batting line-up nor did they mention the need to question the technique and temperament of some of the batsmen in the team.

Confidence is a two-edged sword, it works fine in moderate quantity, but, too much confidence can often make people overlook some of the areas which need immediate work.

Another approach which is beyond the logic is to play five batsmen in spite of repeated failures of the top and middle-order barring Virat Kohli. When one area of the game is struggling, it is always prudent to add some more cushion or strength to it and it is no secret that Indian batting is the weak link of the current Indian team. But, at the moment the Indian team has chosen to look away and not acknowledge this fact. If they would have done so they would have added an extra batsman long back and perhaps would have saved some blushes of the batting department.

It seems that Indian team is still stuck with the glorious past of Indian batting when Indian team had some of the finest players in the world in its squad. Current Indian batting line-up has failed to live up to that legacy and it is time to acknowledge that India is not a batting powerhouse anymore, by doing so they would be able to take the pragmatic approach of adding some more firepower to the batting line-up and would end up adding an extra cushion in the form of the sixth batsman.

Indian team has another opportunity in the form of upcoming Australian series to correct this mistake and play with an extra batsman on the tour to Australia. This strategy has worked for India in the past and might work again.

Indian bowling is doing great at the moment and India can do with 4 specialist bowlers, even when India play with 5 bowlers the 5th bowler is underused. An additional batsman will not only provide some cushion to the already struggling batting line-up, but it will also help India to prevent the lower middle order collapse and add those important 70-80 runs to take Indian team to a respectable first inning total, which is a must in Australian conditions.