India's 3-0 series loss to New Zealand at home has opened up the long-prevailing cracks in the team, especially in the batting. More often than not, it was the lower order comprising Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel who bailed India out of trouble. It didn't click in the series against the Kiwis and for the first time since 2012, India lost aTest series at home. This loss also broke their winning streak of 18 series at home while for the first time in history, India were whitewashed in a series of three or more matches.
On expected lines, questions are being raised especially of the batting line-up that collapsed on multiple occasions in the series. The continuous failure of senior players like Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli raised a lot of eyebrows. The duo is on the wrong side of its 30s and its poor numbers especially while batting on rank turners in India. Is it time for India to move on from Rohit and Kohli? Will it be easy to look past their winning contribution to India over the years in the longest format? Are the players in the domestic circuit ready to replace them? We will dig deep into all these aspects and a lot more in our India TV Special Story:
Virat Kohli changed Indian cricket's identity after becoming the captain
Virat Kohli took over India's Test captaincy from MS Dhoni on a full-time basis in January 2015. The team was at the seventh position in the ICC rankings then. He drove the mission to make the team number one in the longest format and with improved performance away from home coupled with continued dominance at home. Moreover, Kohli led from the front and it didn't take much time for him to become the poster boy of Indian cricket. He walked the talk and with Ravi Shastri as head coach, he found the perfect foil to match his aggression.
The result was, India became the top Test team in the world within 21 months of Kohli taking over and sustained the numero uno position for the next 36 months. The crowning moment of the Kohli-led Indian side came in October 2016 when they thrashed New Zealand 3-0 at home pipping Pakistan to the top spot. By then, India's dominance at home was real with teams finding it extremely tough to cope with the turning tracks. The winning streak that started with the 4-0 annihilation of Australia under Dhoni, Kohli just took it to another level winning a staggering 22 out of 28 Tests under his captaincy while losing only one, to Australia while five matches ended in a draw.
Kohl led from the front in most of these Test matches notching up seven double-centuries from July 2016 to October 2019 with 254* being his highest score. In fact, from July 2016 to February 2017, the then-Indian skipper crossed the 200-run mark four times showcasing his immense skills in red-ball cricket. To cut things short, Virat Kohli played a major role in India's dominance at home in Test cricket.
Rohit Sharma joined the bandwagon as an opener in 2019
With the inception of the World Test Championship (WTC), Rohit Sharma's fortunes in Test cricket also changed dramatically. His long-awaited move as an opener in the format came to fruition in the home series against South Africa and finally, Rohit had cracked the red-ball format at the international level. He was a middle-order till then and was yet to prove his mettle in the whites. He was the top run-scorer amassing 529 runs in four innings at an impeccable average of 132.25 and the best score of 212.
This was the second coming for Rohit in Tests just like it happened with him in white-ball cricket in 2013 and he never looked back since then. The current Indian skipper plundered runs at will not only at home but also away with his best effort coming on the UK tour in England in 2021. He was the top run-scorer for India with 368 runs in four Tests at an average of 52.57 with a century and two fifties to his name.
His performance at the top helped India extend their unreal dominance at home too and after Kohli stepped down as captain, Rohit just took over to continue the winning streak. His form with the bat too never deserted with big scores coming at the right time.
What went wrong in the 2020s decade then?
The 2020s decade didn't start on a memorable note for the entire world with COVID-19 shutting down all cricket. However, apart from the virus, the start of the decade also had a massive effect on Virat Kohli's form. He didn't hit a single century in Tests from November 2019 to March 2023. In fact, since November 2019, Kohli has scored only two centuries in the longest format of the game. To make things worse, his old habits of teasing the ball outside the off-stump, among many others, also came back and his game against the spinners, especially at home declined dramatically.
More often than not, the former India skipper got out to the spinners playing for the first time in Tests. Even though the captain and coach backed him all the time, the numbers have never improved since then and truly, the magical era with the bat for Kohli hasn't returned since 2019. His WTC numbers are not great either, especially in the second and third editions (2021-24).
Coming back to Rohit Sharma, his numbers compared to Virat Kohli in this decade are much better. But his technique and approach are under the scanner. The man who batted so well in England leaving balls outside the off-stump and respected the longest format has allowed his white-ball game to take over his mind in Tests. The Indian skipper is looking for quick runs even in the whites and has probably given up on playing long innings. His approach to go on all-out attack worked in ODIs and T20Is that helped India also win the T20 World Cup earlier this year. But for some reason, Rohit has opted for the same approach in Tests and that hasn't worked out at all. He has played more than 100 balls only twice since July 23 in 24 innings which is a startling stat.
A forgettable home season
All the aforementioned issues just compounded in the 2024-25 home season for Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. Both of them never clicked in five Test matches played against Bangladesh and New Zealand. Rohit and Kohli scored only a solitary half-century in 10 innings. The result? The Kiwis whitewashed India for the first time to create history. Not that India lost only because of these two senior players but their poor technique was exposed right through the series in each innings.
India's proud record of winning 18 consecutive series at home ended horribly and the criticism of the senior duo seems fair now. With age not on their side and the WTC cycle ending after the upcoming Australia tour, will the Indian team management take the tough call of leaving them out? or will the veteran players storm back into form to live for another day and prove their mettle yet again? Well, only time will tell if they would be able to do that.
Who is ready to replace the stalwarts?
Given the fact that both Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli have contributed a lot to the Indian Test team over the years, it is close to impossible to find their replacements instantly but there are certainly a few players who have been scoring runs in the domestic circuit. The likes of Rajat Patidar, Devdutt Padikkal and Sai Sudharsan have impressed in the middle order over the last couple of years. In fact, Padikkal and Sudharsan also performed in the ongoing Ranji Trophy season while the duo was impressive against Australia A recently with the latter also notching up a second-innings ton.
Rohit's replacement, meanwhile, looks ready with Abhimanyu Easwaran piling up runs in domestic cricket over the years and he has also made it to the squad for Australia tour. He might make his debut as well in the first Test with the Indian captain unlikely to be available and has a chance to make a statement as well.
If the Indian selectors and the management take the tough decision to look past Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli after the ongoing WTC cycle, then we can say that the team has finally hit the transition button with the next generation taking over the mantle.
