Raju Korti
There is something extremely funny when a national team is bundled out for a paltry total, especially when the team, touted as one with great batting depth and plenteous bench strength, falls like nine pins. Actually, for a total score of 36, paltry is a big concession. The manner in which India meekly gave up in Adelaide today with just 36 runs and no one managing to enter even the double digit score was worse than an abject surrender. Worse still, all this happened when I was away for some work and when I tuned in, India was already gasping at 26/8 and staring at one of the most humiliating defeats on a foreign soil. It brought back memories of the disastrous 1974 series against England when Indians were handed out a 3-0 Whitewash by the Englishmen. At Lords India scored just 42 in 17 overs to lose by an innings and 285 runs. Even then, recall that the late Eknath Solkar had dourly stuck around for his 18 runs when others capitulated before Geoff Arnold and Chris Old. That team had Gavaskar, Wadekar and Viswanth. The refrain was the Indians couldn't come to grips with the biting cold weather and refused to take their hands out of their pockets to take catches. Today, with No 2 ICC ranking Kohli, they had no such excuse and in a spunk-less display of batting could score 36 in 19 overs, their score-card reading like someone's mobile number as the joke is being circulated among furious but sarcastic fans. There is of course no discounting the superb spell bowled by Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood with the pink ball but it is inexplicable that a team caves in with not even a semblance of fight.
A look at the lowest Test totals should, however, give the Indians some consolation. On the record front, India has much to cheer about, facts being stranger than fiction. In the history of Test cricket India has 8 low totals as against Australia and England (19 each), New Zealand (16), South Africa (13) and West Indies (7). To give more comprehension to these figures, India and New Zealand, at least until the mid-70s were not exactly giants in the international reckoning but traditional Ashes rivals Australia and England are match for each other on that count. New Zealand, patently the minnows then, have come a long way to be no pushovers but they still retain their dubious record of the lowest ever Test total. From the lowest low of 26 by New Zealand to the lowest high of Pakistan's 80, there have been 106 such lowest low-scoring cricketing matches. Even lowest totals have scored a hundred in a game that is a baffling turmoil of numbers.
If you exempt the cut-throatism and ruthlessness that obtains in the way the game is played today with understandably high stakes, the fact remains that at the end of the day it is a game where teams will win or lose and even the best of teams can have a bad day in office. India's loss rankles not because of the loss per se but because of the complete absence of will to fight it out. With three more Tests to go and Kohli on paternity leave, the others have to more than iron out the kinks in their armour.
Beyond figures and customary sermonizing, I always wonder what does the team do on a day like this when their reputation is shredded to pieces. You see players in the dug-out or balcony chatting away merrily, feverishly gesticulating, standing up in excitement and applauding, clinching fists, eating snacks and sipping beverages but a loss like this early in the tour takes some resilience to bounce back. I am curious to know how Ravi Shastri will deal with this apart from giving his boys some pep talk to goad them into action since the batting technique of most of them showed they lacked application, forgot basics and seemed to be still stuck in the IPL mindset.
From the Summer of 42 in 1974 in Lords to the Winter of 36 in 2020 in Adelaide -- and I am going by the Indian seasons -- India has taken 46 years to do worse. If this piece of statistic is any indication, I hope I won't be alive to see the worst.
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