India goes totally bust after eight long years

In December 2002, we were beaten 0-2 on New Zealand soil. No-one batted an eyelid as 0-2 and 0-3 were regular staples of the Indian Test team in those days. The despondent Indian fan would merely move on to the next series.

But from 2003 to the recently concluded West Indies tour, India never lost a Test series by more than a margin of two Tests. Our worst series defeats were a 0-1 or a 1-2. Now if you think there may be many other teams which share such a record in the same period, then you are wrong.

Australia has lost three times in such a manner in the last three years itself. Sri Lanka beat South Africa 2-0 in 2006. And England? They were humiliated by Australia 0-5 in the Ashes of 2006. The English have sure moved on!

First things first, it's time to salute the Indian Test team's consistency spread across many players, captains and coaches for the last eight odd years.

But having said that, one thing is clear. The current Indian team has simply imploded.

Just like that!

India finds itself at a pitiable 0-3 after the Edgbaston Test. We seriously face the prospect of a 0-4 whitewash, unthinkable for any defending world champions of any era.

Team India hasn’t looked like an International outfit

But even that scoreline doesn't tell the whole story.

The top order showed absolutely no fight. There was no sting in the tail when it was really required. The fast bowling was listless. There was no attack in the spin. The fielding was atrocious. All the players seemed to lack motivation. Nobody seemed interested in winning.

So what went wrong? Everything, it appears.

What went right? Hardly a thing!

Maybe it has been a long time coming. For example, the famed Indian batting line-up has failed to cross the 400 mark for 16 straight innings, something that doesn't happen very often.

The reasons for India's abject surrender will be debated for quite some time to come, maybe without a conclusive result.

It maybe a good time to accept that the current process has broken down and that the team management has failed for this tour.

A crisis is a good time to overhaul any system.

Some things that could be looked into...

Raise the bar for injuries

The way the BCCI handles injuries has become a bit of a joke.

Zaheer Khan went out of action on Day 1 after pulling a hamstring and we were left with a bowler short for the duration of the Test. But instead of sending Zaheer home and getting a replacement immediately to acclimatize to the English conditions, he was kept on without playing a match.

To make matters worse he was even picked for the ODI tour and then declared unfit immediately after. Clearly someone in the team management has absolutely no idea about the scope of any injury any player has. This has happened more than a dozen times in Zaheer's career alone!

Was Virender Sehwag fit to play in the Edgbaston Test? His first ever King Pair may point to the fact that he probably wasn't match ready. Abhinav Mukund, who had just scored a century in a practice match, must be feeling sore.

A fully fit future potential is better than an unfit great!

The team management just has to raise the bar for injuries. There's simply no other way.

While it may make sense to risk such things for a world cup, it doesn’t make sense to do so in a regular series.

Preserve, not expose the seniors

Rahul Dravid hates opening the innings, but still does it for India's sake. VVS Laxman doesn’t relish coming early on in the innings. He did that frequently in this tour and has had one of his worst outings.

Dravid, Laxman and Tendulkar are getting older, so it makes sense to preserve them instead of exposing them. This is all the more significant because nobody has come close to replacing them.

What will happen when Dravid retires? Collapses could become even more frequent. It may be a good idea to start looking for his replacement now itself. Dravid should be fixed at No. 4, Tendulkar at 5 and Laxman at 6.

People like Virat Kohli and Cheteswar Pujara will have to be groomed for the No. 3 spot. It might be a good idea to try out even some of the spare openers at that slot.

A totally new pace structure

Till the 1990s, fast medium pacers in India were rare, but the ones we had were put to optimum use. Our first real opening pair was Kapil Dev and Manoj Prabhakar who operated together in the early 1990s. After that the regular pair was Javagal Srinath and Venkatesh Prasad.

In the last 10 years, the amount of fast medium pacers that have come into India has been astonishing. Despite that most of them have fallen at the wayside.

There is absolutely no way of predicting the pair that will open with the new ball for India a few series from now. It's an open house with pacers walking in and out all the time.

While the last 10 years have seen our biggest ever successes, the biggest failure has been our ability to groom fast bowlers.

It's time to totally change the way India handles its pacers and maybe even open a brand new pace academy with the best fast bowling coaches in the world. All current coaching systems have failed.

Fight Fatigue

When will the BCCI understand that it's not about the number of matches that a player plays, but cramped schedules?

On April 2, the Indian team won the World Cup after 28 long years. On April 8, they played their first IPL match. What a nice way to reward the champions! And this is not the first time such a thing has happened.

If the moment you end a series, you have to start worrying about catching a plane for the next series, then something's got to give somewhere.

While nobody is telling the BCCI to cancel tours, matches in a tour can be cancelled to make the tour more accommodating.

Reports said that captain MS Dhoni was not interested in attending the West Indies tour, but the BCCI gave him concession for just the ODI series and asked him to play the Tests.

Far from turning down such requests the BCCI should keep an eye on fatigue and even force players to take rest if they feel he is burning out.

New coach blues?

The only new variable in the Indian cricketing scene is the arrival of Duncan Fletcher. While it may be a mere co-incidence that the Indian team crashed soon after his arrival, a thorough investigation has to be done if something has upset the apple cart.

More Sunil Rajguru columns

The Indian team players had trouble with Greg Chappell right from the beginning of his tenure, but the BCCI reacted only after things got totally out of hand.

It's not about the ICC No. 1 ranking.

It's theoretically possible for India win the fourth Test.

Then one bad series for England and one a really good one for India may be all it takes to recapture the crown.

The manner in which the Indian team has capitulated for three Test matches in a row is the real cause for concern.

Six innings in a row without a Team India 300 where Alastair Cook alone made 294 in an innings is quite baffling.

It's not the end of the world, but the team management will have to sit down and chalk down a long term plan. Short term measures simply won't do.

The author is a Bangalore-based journalist and blogger.

He blogs at http://sunilrajguru.com/