The test of Tests for India in New Zealand

India’s Test side, though a more settled unit than the ODI side, still has some issues to sort out

It is an unfathomably confounding conundrum that the Indian team is facing at present – for a team represented by a breed of cricketers born and brought up in an era far removed from the heydays of Test cricket, it ought to have been simpler to make a more painless transition into the future in the shorter formats, rather than the longer one.

The ride however has been smoother in Tests instead of ODIs for an Indian team that is facing desperate times in trying to find effective replacements for the vacancies left the big wigs of the yesteryear.

The misery piled onto the team morale has been especially brutal in the last two months, when a confident Indian team surged towards glories in South Africa and New Zealand and ended up facing a win-drought after 10 games across all formats.

The recently concluded ODI series against the Kiwis has accentuated India’s resurfacing problems playing abroad, now in the absence of the security blanket engendered by the likes of Yuvraj, Harbhajan, Gambhir and Sehwag in ODIs and Sachin, Laxman and Dravid in Tests.

The consolation of a tied match, juxtaposed with four hideous defeats, is surely not going to make the team happy with the World Cup 2015 staring them in the face.

Fortunately, for Dhoni and his boys, this marks the end of a winter in which they failed to win a single ODI outside the subcontinent, and the advent of the Test series in New Zealand shall be whole-heartedly welcomed by the visitors, in the light of the sharp contrast developed in their performance across the longer and shorter formats of the game.

For even though India’s exit from South Africa was unfortunately marked a 1-0 Test series defeat, the team fared far better donning the White rather than the Blue.

The Indian Test squad, as mentioned earlier, appears more settled and match ready than the ODI unit – a section of which seems to be perennially wallowing in the squalor of uncertainty of future in the team and listlessness in demeanour on the field.

While Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane have already established their credentials of being potent flag bearers of the Indian Test future, others like Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan need to deliver on the promise that they had made with superlative performances with the bat in the last one year.

Murali Vijay’s solo ‘innings of substance’ of 97 in the second Test at Durban in South Africa, last year, came in the wake of fears that he would be unsuitable for the long run in Tests – that innings, engineered against the pace and swing of Steyn and Co. ought to have instilled the much needed confidence in this inconsistent Indian prodigy for him to take on similar challenges in New Zealand now.

Apart from the unimpressive run of form of Dhawan and Rohit, the one other thing which is likely to cause the deepening of a frown into a scowl on the captain’s forehead is the bowling – remember, it was the one session lost due to undisciplined and erratic bowling in Durban that cost India a Test in which they had wrested the early initiative from the mighty South Africans?

The headache emanating from bootless experiments with the bowling department and the unsavoury results yielded by most of those experiments ought to feature high up on the Indian team’s priority ladder as they continue to grapple with the problems of a bowling unit that has hardly a name other than Zaheer Khan to show for in the last five years.

In this context, the following issues ought to be kept in mind before heading into the first Test against New Zealand at Auckland in two days’ time.

Spinners need to be reinserted in the equation – One of the most cogent strategies employed by the Kiwis during their victorious ODI campaign against India was the successful handling of spinners – Jadeja and Ashwin – in the middle overs – a move that led to New Zealand into the slog overs with wickets in hand, which subsequently propelled them to towering totals in all the games.

Ravichandran Ashwin needs to come good for India

The Indians must be wary of the fact that a somewhat similar ploy shall surely be used by the hosts in the Tests too; hence the need of the day is motivate the spinners to take the challenge head on, instead of meekly ‘containing’ runs and running dry in the wickets column.

Saying that, one must also consider the quandary that the Indian captain might now face, given that none other Jadeja and Ashwin are in the Test squad – both, after multiple experiments in the ODI series, have failed to evince genuine signs of effectiveness in New Zealand – the absence of a third option may now well start haunting Dhoni, who has traditionally found it excruciatingly difficult to manoeuvre the pace resources outside the subcontinent with any shred of conviction.

Zaheer needs support – Even with an endless list of changes made to the domestic set up in our country, the old warhorse in Zaheer Khan still remains India’s one and only hope in the pace bowling department outside the subcontinent (sometimes, inside too!); and the South African tour was an apt occasion to bring the team management to terms with this disturbing fact.

Zaheer Khan will need support from the other end

That Ishant Sharma is beyond any saviour a foregone conclusion now (even though he may still cruise into the playing XI for the coming Tests, on account of inexplicable factors!) and looking at the appalling inconsistencies of an otherwise promising Umesh Yadav, one may well be tempted to say that he shall soon be going down India’s waste basket if the present tumult in his career is not stymied.

Mohammad Shami, notwithstanding his ‘brainless’ death bowling in the recent one dayers, Ishwar Pandey, riding high on confidence after bagging three wickets against NZ XI in a recently played practice match, and Bhuvneshwar Kumar thus remain the ideal contenders to partner Zak alongside the apparently ‘ineffective spinners’.

While Shami deserves to get the green flag ahead of the other two for his sterling performances in South Africa, Ishwar Pandey’s recent domestic exploits may also propel him into the playing XI ahead of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, whose chicanery with the red cherry appear to have become too mainstream now.

The fire of redemption needs to start burning in the innermost sanctums of the Indian team, for that, more than anything else shall determine whether or not India can overcome the paucity of cricketing resources and script a majestic turnaround on this tour.