Outlook Grim As India Prepares to Face England

Amit Dave/ReutersIndian batsmen Sachin Tendulkar, right, and Virender Sehwag, during a practice session in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, on Tuesday. The first test match between India and England starts Thursday in Ahmedabad.

As India prepares to take on England in what promises to be an exciting series of four tests at home starting Thursday, its frontline batsmen's brittle batting and lackluster form is a cause for concern, particularly after the retirement of Rahul Dravid and V.V.S. Laxman in quick succession this year.

The triumvirate of Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir, who are the mainstay of India's batting, have not done anything extraordinary, individually as well as collectively, for well over a year now, not even against the lowly New Zealand team in the recent two tests at Hyderabad and Bangalore.

For all his genius and experience, Tendulkar's inability to hold the innings together after Sehwag and Gambhir repeatedly failed to give good starts in all the four tests in England last year, and during another four on the subsequent tour of Australia in the 2011-12 season, was one of the main reasons why the Indian batting repeatedly failed. Consequently India suffered one humiliating defeat after another in all eight tests.

The truth is that Tendulkar, who has been playing international cricket since 1989, is more of a liability than an asset to the Indian team in the twilight of his otherwise phenomenal career. It was pathe tic, torturous even, to see this iconic batsman struggle for survival at the wicket, leave alone scoring runs, against the Kiwis. All he managed to score was 19, 17 and 27 runs in three outings. Worse still, he was clean-bowled on all the three occasions.

Gambhir recently boasted in an interview to the Press Trust of India that he and Sehwag are still the “world's best” opening pair. That may be, but their individual and combined contributions for well over a year now leave a lot to be desired.

An impressive start by openers usually has a positive bearing on the other batsmen who follow, but Sehwag and Gambhir have not had a good opening in recent times, and it has had a negative effect on India's middle-order, especially when Tendulkar is also no longer prolific.

“I don't expect any miracle from Tendulkar against England,” Kiran More, the former India wicketkeeper, said in an interview with India Ink. “He is a great batsman and he doesn't need to prove anything to anybody. It was just that he had one poor series against New Zealand. But you can't write him off. Not yet. He was pretty consistent in England and Australia. He may not have scored prodigiously by his own high standard, but he was always there with useful contributions when the chips were down.”

Is it time the Indian selectors replaced either Sehwag or Gambhir, or both? More does not think so. “This is a very crucial series, and India needs the experience of Sehwag and Gambhir,” he said. “No doubt they aren't in good form and are unable to give good starts to the Indian team for a bit too long now. But this isn't time to experiment.”

But if Sehwag and Gambhir fail against England, he said, the selectors should start looking for younger replacements. “You need to look at the future and build the Indian team accordingly,” he said. “And there are plenty of good young opening batsmen in domestic cricket. Some of them can be tried. Shikhar Dhawan may be given a chance. Murali Vijay, who is in good nick lately, can be given another opportunity to prove his worth again.”

The one experienced man who has been noticeably consistent with the bat is India's mercurial cricketer and captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who made handsome contributions against New Zealand batting down the order, scoring 73, 62 and 48 not out. But then Dhoni is not a specialist batsman. He is principally a wicketkeeper, who has a definite role to play with the bat.

At a time when the experienced batsmen have individually and collectively let India down more often than not, it is the youngsters like Virat Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara who have batted like seasoned campaigners. When the big guns failed to fire in Australia, it was Kohli who often tried his best to stem the rot, scoring India's only test hundred on the difficult tour â€" 116 in the first innings at Adelaide.

But he had probably saved his best for the tria ngular CB Series, between Australia, India and Sri Lanka.

In the all-important match against Sri Lanka at Bellerive Oval in Hobart, when India appeared to be inviting yet another humiliation chasing an improbable target of 321, Kohli had an astonishing innings of 133 (86 balls, 16 fours, 2 sixes) not out. Not only did India romp home but achieved the target with a good 13.2 overs to spare.

Kohli continued his good run with the bat against New Zealand and scored 58, 103 and 51 not out in the two tests. Pujara, who missed the tours of England and Australia because of injury, celebrated his return to test cricket with scores of 159, 9 and 48.

Though their performances were especially noteworthy because Tendulkar, Sehwag and Gambhir failed to make major contributions, Kohli and Pujara will be truly tested against England who, unlike New Zealand, is no pushover.

England is one of the world's toughest and top-ranked test teams, with some of the world's fine st fast bowlers in James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Tim Brensan, and a champion off-spinner in Graeme Swann. The Indian team won't be able to rely too much on the home-field advantage.