IND vs SA: Lens firmly on Gautam Gambhir as India’s home dominance crumbles

Lens firmly on Gautam Gambhir as India’s home dominance crumbles (BCCI Photo)

In the decade before New Zealand arrived in India last winter, India had played 47 home Tests and won an astonishing 36 of them. It was a record of dominance with few parallels in any sport. Even the four defeats – two apiece against Australia and England – hadn’t been costly because India won those series.

What a difference a year makes. The embarrassing 30-run defeat to South Africa, inside three days, at Eden Gardens marked a fourth home defeat in the last six Tests. The two victories have come against West Indies, who stopped being taken seriously as a red-ball side over a decade ago.

“There were no demons in this wicket,” said Gautam Gambhir, India’s under-fire coach, at the post-match press conference. “It was not an unplayable wicket. Temba Bavuma, Axar [Patel], Washi [Washington Sundar] made runs. The point is that if we keep talking about wickets, if you call it a turning track, see how many wickets were taken by the seamers. The majority of the wickets went to the seamers.”

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That simply isn’t true though. Of the 18 Indian wickets to fall – Shubman Gill being a notable absentee after batting just three balls in the first dig – 12 were taken by spinners, with Simon Harmer starring in both innings for combined figures of 8 for 51. The 36-year-old Harmer is a gifted off-spinner who can impart both over-spin and side-spin, but by no stretch of imagination is he an Erapalli Prasanna or R Ashwin.

“This is exactly the pitch we were looking for,” continued Gambhir. “And I feel that, as I just mentioned before, that the curator was very, very helpful and this is exactly what we wanted, and this is exactly what we got. When you don’t play well, this is what happens.”

That begs the question: Why would you want such a pitch? In normal conditions, both India’s batsmen and bowlers are superior to the Proteas’. A dicey pitch bridges the skill gap between two sides and makes batting a lottery. And it’s not as though India need them either. When England and Bazball were well beaten 4-1 in 2024, each game was played on normal Indian pitches that went the distance. India topped 400 four times in nine innings and made 396 in another. The spinners were skillful enough to then bowl the team to wins.

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Gambhir has plenty of credit in the bank when it comes to white-ball cricket, but serious questions continue to be asked of his stewardship of the Test side. Even India’s one good result during his tenure – the 2-2 draw away in England last summer – should have been a victory on the balance of play.

Sourav Ganguly, the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) president pointedly remarked that this was a pitch India asked for, with no watering in the four days leading up to the toss. But as with New Zealand last year, the gambit has come back to smack India in the face. Introspection beckons.