Shamik Chakrabarty in Chennai
A new red-ball era is about to begin in Indian cricket under a new management. Rohit Sharma remains the captain. But the personnel around him have changed. Gautam Gambhir is the new head coach. Assistant coaches Abhishek Nayar and Ryan ten Doeschate, and bowling coach Morne Morkel are also new to the set-up.
Gambhir’s stint as coach has started with a mixed result in the shorter formats. India won the T20 series in Sri Lanka, but lost the ODI series, failing to counter spin on the Premadasa Stadium turners. The pitch at Chepauk, the venue for the first Test against Bangladesh, is unlikely to be a Bunsen.
It’s a red soil surface and is unlikely to crack easily despite the Chennai heat. Bangladesh have some experienced spinners — Shakib Al Hasan and Mehidy Hasan Miraz have 114 Tests between them and 416 wickets — and India are not going to play on a pitch that narrows the gap between the two sides.
Gambhir has big boots to fill. Under Rahul Dravid, Gambhir’s predecessor, India were the second-best Test side in the world, playing 24 matches, winning 14 and losing seven. Australia were the best and they stamped their authority by trouncing India in the 2023 World Test Championship final. India will try avenge it next year but before that, there’s the small matter of playing 10 Tests — five at home against Bangladesh and New Zealand followed by five Down Under in the winter.
The common perception is that India will use the home series as a dress rehearsal for the five Tests in Australia. Wrong. The first Test against Bangladesh is starting on Thursday and Rohit made it clear that his team will go all-out for a win.
“Look, at the end of the day, you are playing for your country,” Rohit said at the press conference on Tuesday. “There’s no dress rehearsal kind of stuff happening here. Every game that we play is important. And every game becomes important because of what is at stake.”
India top the WTC table with a percentage point of 68.52, but they need to win at least five more Tests to confirm their place in the final. From that perspective, winning the series against Bangladesh is very important. The India captain said as much. “The table is wide open, and you want to win every game. So it doesn’t matter where we play in two months’ time. We want to win here. We want to win this Test match.”
This is the reason why the squad assembled in Chennai a week before the start of the first Test and held a camp. Now they are getting into the game mode and will decide on the playing XI. India bounced back to win against England 4-1 earlier this year with a depleted side. In this series, they are back to full-strength. Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant and KL Rahul have returned to the fold, although the latter’s presence would mean exclusion for Sarfaraz Khan from the XI. Then again, it’s always nice to have good bench strength and the youngsters will keep the first-choice players on their toes.
As far as the bowling combination is concerned, the hosts are likely to go with three spinners, with Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav — at the expense of Axar Patel — forming the trio. The team management, however, knows the importance of rotation, especially keeping the fast bowlers fresh for the marquee assignment later this year.
“We have laid out some plans on how we are going to manage these bowlers,” Rohit said. “I think we have done that pretty well. Even when we played against England, we managed to get (Jasprit) Bumrah one Test match off. We managed to give (Mohammed) Siraj one Test match off.”
Bangladesh are riding high after clean-sweeping Pakistan in their lair. But India are a better team and they haven’t lost a home Test series since 2012. Rohit & Co will have to ensure they don’t slip on a banana peel.