Second Test: India's aura at home fading as another defeat looms

India’s aura of invincibility at home is waning, for sure. If the 3-0 whitewash by the Kiwis last year despite a much hyped batting line-up showed the first signals, a relatively inexperienced team is now struggling to find its feet as another series defeat looms large against the Proteas after the third day’s play in Guwahati.

And yes, the Men in Blue have to only blame themselves for the mess they find themselves in. It was on Sunday that Kuldeep Yadav said the pitch was like a ‘road’ after the Indian spinners failed to make a mark against the South African lower order. Little did he know that his batters would fail to play the staying game on a Test wicket as good as any — coming up short against the lanky Marco Jansen, who wrecked the middle order to finish with a sensational six for 48.

It’s difficult to point a finger at any batter in particular, but it’s time stand-in skipper Rishabh Pant be held accountable. Poised critically at 102 for four at the break, one had banked on Pant to take the fight to the opponents’ camp but Jansen outwitted him with length as Pant took his bottom hand off for a casual one-handed slap and was caught behind.

If Sunil Gavaskar’s ‘stupid, stupid, stupid’ comment in Australia about one of Pant's more outrageous shots still rings in our ears, it was no different this time. with TV pundit and former SA pacer Dale Steyn calling it a "brainfade shot".

‘’The wicket was no snake pit really,’’ said Washington Sundar later, having come in at no. 8 after being promoted to no. 3 at the Eden, but still holding out with Kuldeep for a fighting 72-run stand for the eighth wicket. ‘’If you can spend time there, runs will come,’’ said the spinning allrounder, whose 48 was the second highest score in a total of 201.

The inadequacies of the Indian batters, meanwhile, should not take anything away from Jansen, who vindicated the tag of an allrounder to push the hosts to the brink. After a counterattacking 91 on Sunday, he ran in hard and put his shoulder to the wheel to extract variable bounce which exposed the veteran Ravindra Jadeja and Nitish Reddy rather badly.

The Jadeja dismissal was a sorry sight as he took his eyes off an extremely well-directed bouncer from Jansen, for the ball to roll off his bat and travel straight to the slips. Reddy’s dismissal, meanwhile, was one of the best sights if you are a South African fan as he couldn’t keep a snorter from Jansen down and Aiden Markram thew himself forward at gully to complete a sensational catch.  

Looking ahead to day four, the Indian batters need to put up nothing short of a fabled comeback — as Laxman and Dravid did against Australia at the Eden Gardens in 2001 — but their performance (India’s three totals in this series so far have been 189, 93 and 201) does not inspire confidence.

They are a mammoth 288 runs in arrears, and South Africa, up 1-0 in the series, is likely to throw down the gauntlet with at least a 450-plus target. The beauty of Test cricket is that it has often made fools of naysayers, but the character and spunk seem to be missing from this batting line-up.  

They are missing captain Shubman Gill alright — thanks to the aftermath of a neck spasm — but there are far too many holes in this batting order that need to be filled up before it can be as competitive as it was. After a highly impressive 2-2 draw against England only months earlier in somewhat batting-friendly conditions, they are looking vulnerable all over again, against both pace and spin.

If India finally goes down 2-0 in this series, the knives will certainly be out for Gautam Gambhir, raising the call to relieve him of his red-ball responsibilities in favour of someone like V.V.S. Laxman. The template for the longer format may have changed over the years, as Australia’s quickfire win in the first Test Ashes Test showed, but Gambhir’s experimentation and overt reliance on allrounders in place of specialists have proved counterproductive so far.  

How does the Indian camp look into the match? ‘’Stay positive, you never know what will happen,’’ Washington signed off with a smile.