Pune Test: Batting meltdown threatens end of India's unbeaten run at home

It’s difficult to decide India’s worst day in the ongoing Test series against New Zealand — the 46 in Bengaluru or 156 all out in Pune? If the first could be treated as an aberration and a combination of factors such as cloud cover, hostile seam bowling and a temperamental pitch, the second on Friday was harder to fathom.

The capitulation of the famed Indian batting line-up was tough to digest against Mitchell Santner, an economic left-arm spinner at best, whose asset has been a nagging length rather than an ability to turn the ball. After 28 Tests and until the beginning of this one, his best-ever haul in an innings was a 3/34. Now, the Hamilton man has figures of 19.3-1-53-7 against the likes of Virat Kohli & Co.

Keeping up the pressure at the other end was Glenn Phillips, better known as an attacking middle-order batter who also bowls off-spin. As the disciplined New Zealanders have swelled their overall lead to 301 runs already by the end of play on second day, the end of India’s unbeaten run of 18 Test series at home (stretching way back to 2013) looks very much a reality. 

Test of character awaits

The question that the Indian fan will be asking is: can the team make a match of the eventual target on a tricky wicket? After being in arrears by a whopping 356 runs in Bengaluru, the hosts did make a match of it, and could have posed a stiffer challenge had they posted a total of 180-plus to bowl at instead of 107. This is where head coach Gautam Gambhir’s rhetoric that he would want his team to be able to rake up ‘400 runs in a day or bat over two days to save a Test if necessary’ would be put to the test.

The pressure on this Indian team, especially the current generation which is not used to losing at home, will be tremendous. A bit of digging shows that on at least three occasions in the last seven years, they were pegged back 1-0 after the first Test — once against Australia in 2017 and twice against England (2021 and 2024), but bounced back every time to win the series.

However, all those series were four-Test affairs which gave each side an even chance, but the ongoing one is a three-match contest, where a defeat will not exactly come as a morale booster for the high profile five-Test tour Down Under in less than a month’s time.  

Whatever be the outcome of this match, it seems Gambhir has to bite the bullet and do some straight talking in the dressing room rather than in front of the media — even if it means hurting some big egos.

There are no prizes for guessing that the Big Two will have to cop most of the flak for the latest meltdown. If Washington Sundar had done his bit to end the New Zealand innings for a modest total on Thursday, skipper Rohit Sharma handed the initiative back to them when he was all squared up by Tim Southee. If it was the signal of a batter short on self confidence, Virat Kohli’s dismissal to Santner was like paying the price for arrogance.

A full toss it was, which Kohli tried to mow down to square leg and lost his leg stump. The ball did drift in from the initial line, but it was still a full toss that Kohli would have dispatched almost every time had he played with a straighter bat. If that’s the shot selection from Kohli, one cannot be too harsh on the likes of Rishabh Pant and Sarfaraz Khan.

The pundits will go back to the what-ifs but then, it’s been a collective batting failure where the Indian batters exposed their frailty to, of all things, spin. They simply need to get their act together in the second innings.