India vs New Zealand Test Series 2024: India had not lost any home Test series for the last 12 years. Winning 18 consecutive series is a historical record in itself, but New Zealand has ended this series in the year 2024. The Kiwi team first won by 8 wickets in Bengaluru, then in Pune also defeated Team India by 113 runs and took an unassailable 2-0 lead in the series. Whenever a team loses, the blame is put on the senior players. If it is said that along with Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, coach Gautam Gambhir also has equal contribution in Team India’s loss in this series, then can you believe it?
How did Gautam Gambhir become the reason for the defeat?
-The biggest factor in India’s defeat can be called India’s very aggressive playing style. Coach Gautam Gambhir is known for such an aggressive approach. Before and during the series against New Zealand, Gambhir had said that he only focuses on winning, no matter what kind of cricket he has to play. England has also been playing with the same aggressive thinking, which is called ‘Baseball’. But due to very aggressive thinking, today England is at sixth place in the WTC table and is not even close to the final. Taking a lesson from this defeat, coach Gautam Gambhir will have to create an environment to play cricket with aggression and understanding instead of being too aggressive.
-Sarfaraz Khan scored a century while batting at fourth position in the Bengaluru Test. But after the return of Shubman Gill in the second test, Sarfaraz was given the responsibility of batting at the sixth position. India’s first innings was reduced to 156 runs. The team was already on the back foot, so the coach and management promoted Washington to sixth place in the batting in the second innings. Where there was a need to maintain stability in the team, the coach changing Sarfaraz’s batting order was showing his pressure.
-Apart from this, the pitch of Pune was completely suitable for spin bowling. Team India came on the field with 3 main spin bowlers and it was the spin bowlers who took all 20 wickets of New Zealand in the match. Jasprit Bumrah is the main fast bowler of the team, but Akashdeep was made to bowl 6 overs in the first innings and the ball did not come in his hands in the second innings. In such a situation, is it better for the team to play Kuldeep Yadav as a fourth spin bowler? Could not prove beneficial.
The result of all these reasons is that now a very complex situation has arisen in front of India. There was a time when Team India was dreaming of easily reaching the final of the World Test Championship. Now he will have to win four out of the next 6 test matches at any cost, only then India can reach the WTC final without any problem.
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