Currently Indian cricket on tour is the tale of two teams - one, female, gliding smoothly into the T20 World Cup semi-finals in Australia, while the other one, male, unexpectedly battles headwinds in New Zealand.
The women have ridden on the performance of diminutive legspinner Poonam Yadav, who has helped India defeat two tough opponents, Australia and New Zealand. They now have the comfort of knowing they'll be in a semi-final in Sydney next week, but facing an opponent as yet unknown.
For the men, the problems started in the ODI section of the tour and they have continued in the Test series. It may just be coincidence but they haven't won since aggressive opener Rohit Sharma limped off the Bay Oval in their fifth successive T20I victory.
Perhaps it was Sharma's absence through injury that prompted an unusual comment from the captain, Virat Kohli, following India's comprehensive defeat in the first Test. The articulate Kohli said, in part, "I don't think being cautious or wary will help because you might stop playing your shots."
Kohli's comments on batting are generally admirable, especially his reason for not adopting innovative shots in short-form matches - so that they don't infiltrate his Test match style. However there's a time for aggression and there's also occasionally a requirement to bat cautiously in Test cricket.
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New Zealand, much like England's seaming surfaces, is a place where caution is required more often than in Australia, where most pitches are extremely true. Whatever the cause, at the Basin Reserve it was an abysmal batting effort from the No. 1-ranked Test team, who failed to reach 200 in either innings.
The batsman with the lowest strike rate in each innings was the obdurate Cheteshwar Pujara. It's hard to be critical of a No. 3 who was heavily involved in India beating Australia in 2018-19 with some lengthy stays at the crease anchoring the innings.
Placing a batting order is not playing a game of "pin the tail on the donkey". It's important to get the balance right and to place players in positions where they are comfortable and hence more likely to succeed. Pujara normally bats behind Sharma and Mayank Agarwal and ahead of Kohli. That's an adequate amount of strokeplay surrounding Pujara, and as a judicious shot maker he's ideal at No. 3 for balance. Mind you, Pujara needs to be careful he doesn't slip into net-practice mode and forget that the object in a match is to score runs regularly.
The other thing that Pujara has to be aware of while batting in the midst of stroke-makers is that he must not keep them becalmed at the non-striker's end for long periods. In Christchurch he found the ideal balance of caution mixed with aggression.
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With Sharma absent through injury it fell to the talented and audacious Prithvi Shaw to open the batting. There's no doubting Shaw's precocious talent, but he needs to learn that there are times for caution against good bowling.
All his innings in ODIs and Tests in New Zealand have been sprinkled with sparkling boundaries and he has got away to a start each time but hasn't managed a big score. He needs to understand that a quick-fire 20 at the right time might win a T20 encounter but dismissal at that stage of a Test innings can be extremely costly. Things looked more promising after a flurry of boundaries in Christchurch, but again he was dismissed at an inopportune time.
Needing to unearth the formula for success and rebound quickly, India have again been made to struggle. Apart from needing a victory to level the series and restore confidence, there's an important psychological reason for righting the ship.
India have a tough tour of Australia looming next summer and New Zealand were just obliterated by Australia under their home conditions. If the Indian men want to replicate the success their female counterparts are currently enjoying in Australia, they'll need to rediscover the art of amassing match-winning scores.