Team India's test defeat: A reality check

Top three batsmen in the Indian cricket team are set to retire in the next 2 to 3 years. What next? 2 of them were out due to injury. One scored a hundred and got out when he was needed the most. Where do we go in search of replacements for the best middle order ever? New recruits need to be groomed, but the process should have started at least 3 years ago. The 'what if' scenarios should have been discussed by the cricket board. But what exactly did they do about it? IPL was supposed to be a brilliant strategy to market cricket. Maybe. But if that brain had sense, it would have thought of creating a second line of batsmen years ago.

Fire fighting seems to be the order of the day. Unknown names (at least unknown to a lot of people) cropped up as soon as Rahul Dravid, V.V.S Laxman and Yuvraj Singh were ruled out of the test match. Agreed Dinesh Karthik was given more than enough chances to prove himself, but why persist with someone for so long. And if they have decided to persist why not one more match. Karthik was probably a safer option in the current situation. He has the experience. He can contribute. His abilities are known. Why experiment now? Why weren't others tried before this match? S. Badrinath, M. Vijay and W. Saha are good. But they need to be groomed around experienced players and not as replacement for an entire set of players. These players should have been tried out a long time ago. At least they would know what test cricket is all about. Bangladesh tour was a perfect platform to give them a taste of test cricket and also boost their confidence. Instead, the board decided to send rookies into a war zone. Playing a full strength South Africa with a full strength squad is tough as it is. Choosing a second string inexperienced players is a suicide mission. The BCCI needs to do some soul searching if India needs to regain the no. 1 test position. Hats off to Badrinath for holding fort in the first innings. Hats off to Vijay for lending support to Tendulkar against a devastating attack. Hats off to Saha for standing like a wall. They showed more courage then some of their other established team members. We have been depending on established batmen to pull us up even from the jaws of defeat. But that may not last long.

Another player who needs to do some soul searching is Harbhajan Singh. He is the leader of our spin attack. Agreed. But where are the wickets. He needs to go back to the drawing board and take a relook. Meanwhile there are other spinners who can fill in. India does not lack spinners since it has been our strength since the spin quartet. India genuinely lacked a pace attack but then Zaheer Khan has performed beautifully for the past few years. There is fresh talent in the form of Mithun and Tyagi. Ishant needs to get back to domestic cricket and discover that which lead him to a test cap. Time for a reality check.