India paid for their obsession with IPL, short-form cricket

Inconvenient Truths The phrase needs no explanation It is a reality that Team India must be prepared to confront if anything is to be learned from their Australian misadventureI read back through my prediction for the series published in midday on November 11 It didnrsquot take Nostradamus to predict the future India were always going to struggle to go the full nine yards with an Australian team who outpointed them on a mantoman comparison in almost every category albeit on pitches that suited AustraliaIn some senses this was a result a decade in the making Irsquove always maintained that India will one day pay the price for their obsession with the IPL and shortform cricket This series was that payday mdash it was white ball cricket played with a red ball only once going the full five days Woeful battingIndiarsquos batting was woefully not Test match standard For all the flair and flamboyance what was needed was more Pujara more Dravid more Agarwal even Itrsquos not just the runs they scored but the length of time it took to score them Only once in the series in the second innings in Perth did India force the Aussie quicks to come back for multiple spells Their lack of potency was laid bare in the very first Test and yet curiously bizarrely India never went there again Therersquos that Inconvenient Truth again mdash learn to bat long and you probably win the seriesAlso ReadIt is sad definitely that I lost in the third set PV Sindhu after crashing out of India Open Super 750Tail end runs was another area of obvious advantage to Australia Indiarsquos only genuine resistance came in Brisbane under threatening clouds but even that was because the Australians were hamstrung by the injury to Josh Hazlewood and the subsequent fatigue of Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc That was in the Third Test but they never tested that theory again The end result spoke for itselfPoor quality of catchingThe quality of catching was always going to be an area of concern for India Australia were by no means perfect but were rarely made to pay for their blunders How does a team with multiple coaches and support staff not get the basics right What is the point of a support team that outnumbers players if the simple skillsets are not addressed Is it a case of the players not taking enough responsibility themselves Inconvenient Truth mdash big heads big wallets dwindling work ethicThe other major disparity of course was the lack of support bowlers In the end the brilliant Jasprit Bumrah was always likely to break down Carrying the workload singlehandedly broke his back When you compare that to Scott Boland who came off the bench to be arguably Australiarsquos best bowler it is a wonder that India were actually in the series until that last morning in Sydney No support for BumrahInconvenient Truth mdash for all the rivers of gold flowing from BCCI reservoirs they simply havenrsquot cultivated the depth to match a country of just 27 million people If the irascible Mohammad Siraj is the next best fast bowler in this vast country the truth is that the system has failed India badly Harsh but true And the elephants in the room cannot be ignored Where to now for Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli Kohli at least has more credit in the bank and may yet live to fight another day but surely there must be a million young batsmen literally who should be ready to walk into the Indian setup Surely Yash Jaiswal cannot be the only jewel in Indiarsquos crown That too can probably be traced back to a generation whorsquove been spoon fed on IPL and have scorned the art form of Pujara Dravid and his ilkKohli must come at No 6Kohli may have to take a leaf from Allan Borderrsquos book He may have to drop down the order to No 6 and finish his career in a less glamorous but equally important position often taking on the second new ball if the top order actually ever bat long enough to enjoy that luxury Whether Kohli can swallow his pride and do that is another question He wasnrsquot able to rein in that little push outside offstump so maybe it is a bridge too far to expect a player of his reputation to retreat gently into the twilight His desperate behaviour towards the end of the series spoke volumes for a man who may have confused Inconvenient Truths with Convenient ExcusesThe writer is a Brisbanebased former firstclass cricketer