Time India’s coaching staff too is made answerable

By Khurram Habib New Delhi, Dec 21 : Ever since Ravi Shastri and his support staff took over the reins of the Indian cricket team in August 2014, following India’s disappointing loss to England in the Test series, the national team’s overseas performance — in South Africa, England, New Zealand and Australia, also known as SENA in cricket parlance — has continued to be unsatisfactory as earlier, despite their 2-1 historic win in Australia in 2018-19.
Together with the two wins on their last tour of Australia, India have won just four of their 19 Tests since August 2014, when the Shastri-headed support staff took charge of the team. Although Anil Kumble was head coach of the team between mid-2016 and mid-2017, India did not tour any of these countries under his stewardship for Test matches.
India’s other two wins in the period in the SENA nations have been one in England and one in South Africa. As against that, Sri Lanka have notched up two wins (both in South Africa) in 16 matches and Pakistan have won three (all three in England) in the SENA countries, deemed to be the toughest for south Asian nations.
For the Indian cricket board, with such vast resources and talent pool, a world class T20 league where the world’s best current and former Test cricketers like Kane Williamson, Steve Smith, AB de Villiers, Trent Boult, Ricky Ponting etc. feature and guide youngsters, this record makes for a poor reading. This, especially when the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is targetting the ICC World Test Championship final next year.
If India are to call themselves as the world’s best, the team needs to show up with results across all countries, especially the SENA nations.
The latest debacle in the first Test at Adelaide last week when India squandered away a strong position from the second day onwards summarised the problems India are facing in all three departments and how the coaching staff has failed to help the players sort out issues.