Two ways of looking at India’s second innings “Batting Collapse”

After India lost its last four wickets for four runs and the last five for 25 runs, there has been some discussion of whether India erred by being a little reckless assuming that the target was already a daunting one, and in the process not putting Australia out of the match completely.

Much of that late Indian collapse is being attributed to an uncharacteristic reverse sweep by a well-set Ajinkya Rahane and the ultra-aggressive approach from Rishabh Pant that finally led to his downfall.

Mark Butcher clearly thinks so. According to him, India made an error and has hence given Australia a whiff at the target. He has a valid point. India could have and probably, should have set a target of around 375 instead of 323. That would have given India the cushion to keep on going for Australian wickets without worrying about the runs.

Rohit Sharma got out early too, but he was out to a good ball. Rahane is certainly guilty of playing a shot that he very rarely plays. With only the tail-enders to partner, he was right in looking for quick runs, but he probably could have tried to do so by playing the kind of conventional shots that he is more adept at.

As for Rishabh Pant, there are some including Michael Clarke who think that he cannot continue to play the way he has been doing in Test cricket and that he needs to adapt. However, one must understand that Pant’s approach was the correct one, given the situation.

India was already more than 260 runs ahead of Australia. He had just seen Rohit getting out to Nathan Lyon early, who was looking very dangerous with the pitch assisting spin and bounce. He wanted to disrupt Lyon’s rhythm.

Though he did not make a substantial score, his still managed to score a valuable knock of 28. Those, including Butcher, who are saying that he could have buckled down after scoring these quick runs, may have a point. But the other way of looking at the innings is that if he had not been ultra-aggressive, he may have spent some more time in the crease and yet not scored as many runs.

You can’t have the cake and eat it too. Pant is guilty of playing ultra-aggressively even when the situation demands otherwise. But on this occasion, he was right to play in the manner he played.