Why is India Struggling in Tests: Data, Tactics & Truth | Ashwin × Jarrod Kimber × Himanish Ganjoo

[Gollum]

Banger of a video, must watch. This is the kind of content I want in Indian broadcasting also. 

 

 

[CG]

The Fact is on turning pitches we had better spinners like Ashwin and Jadeja ,Who outbawled the opposition spinners. But even then we had collapses and our middle order was struggling for years now.You can say modern batsman cant play spin like vvs,ganguly,dravid used to but now with drs its a whole different game.Also sehwag and rohit were attacking openers and on these pitches opener has to score.India downfall at home started when rohit downfall as .

[Vk1]

57 minutes ago, CG said:

The Fact is on turning pitches we had better spinners like Ashwin and Jadeja ,Who outbawled the opposition spinners. But even then we had collapses and our middle order was struggling for years now.You can say modern batsman cant play spin like vvs,ganguly,dravid used to but now with drs its a whole different game.Also sehwag and rohit were attacking openers and on these pitches opener has to score.India downfall at home started when rohit downfall as .

DRS is for both teams. Its a shame to see Marco Jansen & Muthu play spin better than our batsmen

[MK55]

Yes had watched this yesterday. I was shocked to see how poor Kuldeep stats were. 
These guys got completely outclassed talent wise. The 2-0 whitewash is a fair reflection of the gap in skill set.

And batting is horrible too. Jurel Sai may get better but their failures are directly affecting team results big time right now. That first test was the game changer. Gill not batting, experienced guys not contributing and these two guys failing so miserably is unacceptable. That’s the root issue - Skill n class.

 

As players they should be ashamed. Forget the coach (that’s a separate issue) - when you’re out in the field, you have control and you’re the boss. 
 

[Lord]

Only watched bits of it and they seem to be discussing bowling especially spin bowling

 

Our team scores in the series were 189,93,201 and 140. No bowling attack can work with that.

[Nikhil_cric]

2 hours ago, Lord said:

Only watched bits of it and they seem to be discussing bowling especially spin bowling

 

Our team scores in the series were 189,93,201 and 140. No bowling attack can work with that.

How is that the problem when they have shown exactly why our spin bowling is so average?

 

Maharaj and Harmer spun the ball massively and varied their speeds very well. 

 

Harmer is a brilliant spinner who knows how to set batsmen up and take wickets by varying speeds and trajectories to lure batsmen into false shots. 

 

Sundar has a lot of raw ability but he doesn't have the skill to do what Harmer did. 

 

And Jadeja's raw stats are terrible. 

 

We lost to Jansen and Harmer, essentially. 

Edited November 30, 2025 by Nikhil_cric

[Lone Wolf]

8 minutes ago, Nikhil_cric said:

How is that the problem when they have shown exactly why our spin bowling is so average?

 

Maharaj and Harmer spun the ball massively and varied their speeds very well. 

 

Harmer is a brilliant spinner who knows how to set batsmen up and take wickets by varying speeds and trajectories to lure batsmen into false shots. 

 

Sundar has a lot of raw ability but he doesn't have the skill to do what Harmer did. 

 

And Jadeja's raw stats are terrible. 

 

We lost to Jansen and Harmer, essentially. 

Watched half of it and my suspicions of Indian batters and bowlers being lesser skilled than contemporary top players holds true.

 

Our batters simply don't sweep, forget about reverse sweeping someone like Harmer or Maharaj.  Neither do they use their feet like Mayank or Rohit used to do in their prime.

 

Spinners don't have ability to vary their pace coz of T20 overdose and they don't seem to be putting revs on the deliveries either... Or getting the ball to drop.

 

Really disappointed with Sundar,  Kuldeep on occasions bowled well but didn't had any support from the other end and there was no pressure being exerted either with field placements.

 

Axar is a dart machine .. he ain't a test or even FC level spinner.  Keep him for LOIs for restrictive bowling.

 

Indian Fast bowlers don't bowl enough wicket taking balls that Jarrod has long lamented Indian Pacers lack.

Now they don't even try short pitch bowling.

 

Overall ICT is highly low skilled team in Test cricket as of now.

Results should be no surprise 

Edited November 30, 2025 by Lone Wolf

[vayuu1]

A lot of this has to do with kind of pitches we play on earlier pitches use to turn by day 3 or 4 hence spinners use to vary pace also on turners ball use to have fizz hence players use to employ sweep Tendulkar if i am not mistaken had atleast 3,4 type of sweep shots conventional,paddle,slog and reverse,same with sehwag not to forget inside out same with sehwag,the decline started from 12 onwards barring pujara none of the batters could sweep but they were busy players,this gen since spinners bowl quicker coz of t20 effect sweep has been out of their armour,how many apply sweep in ranji very few how many vary spinners wary their pace very few how many pacers bowl that nagging length,in top of that how many pitches are true pitches very few so this was bound to happen we are amongst the worst playing bunch of spin right now and thats a fact forget about kumble ash how many spinners are at Joshi's or Raju's level in domestic 

[vayuu1]

12 minutes ago, Lone Wolf said:

Watched half of it and my suspicions of Indian batters and bowlers being lesser skilled than contemporary top players holds true.

 

Our batters simply don't sweep, forget about reverse sweeping someone like Harmer or Maharaj.  Neither do they use their feet like Mayank or Rohit used to do in their prime.

 

Spinners don't have ability to wary their pace coz of T20, overdose and they don't seem to be putting revs on the deliveries either... Or getting the ball to drop.

 

Really disappointed with Sundar,  Kuldeep on occasions bowled well but didn't had any support from the other end and there was no pressure being exerted either with field placements.

 

Axar is a dart machine .. he ain't a test or even FC level spinner.  Keep him for LOIs for restrictive bowling.

 

Indian Fast bowlers don't bowl enough wicket taking balls that Jarrod has long lamented Indian Pacers lack.

Now they don't even try short pitch bowling.

 

Overall ICT is highly low skilled team in Test cricket as of now.

Results should be no surprise 

Harmer is a veteran he has 1000 fc wicket so its unfair to compare Sundar with him

[Nikhil_cric]

1 hour ago, Lone Wolf said:

Watched half of it and my suspicions of Indian batters and bowlers being lesser skilled than contemporary top players holds true.

 

Our batters simply don't sweep, forget about reverse sweeping someone like Harmer or Maharaj.  Neither do they use their feet like Mayank or Rohit used to do in their prime.

 

Spinners don't have ability to vary their pace coz of T20 overdose and they don't seem to be putting revs on the deliveries either... Or getting the ball to drop.

 

Really disappointed with Sundar,  Kuldeep on occasions bowled well but didn't had any support from the other end and there was no pressure being exerted either with field placements.

 

Axar is a dart machine .. he ain't a test or even FC level spinner.  Keep him for LOIs for restrictive bowling.

 

Indian Fast bowlers don't bowl enough wicket taking balls that Jarrod has long lamented Indian Pacers lack.

Now they don't even try short pitch bowling.

 

Overall ICT is highly low skilled team in Test cricket as of now.

Results should be no surprise 

The real disappointment is Jadeja.  With all his experience, he simply can't vary his speeds even now and got very little dip or turn.

 

 

 

[IndianRenegade]

I belive we don't have a spin bowling coach I think, not enough money to afford to improve our clearly outclassed spinners.

[Stan AF]

Don't need for any analysis .

 

Batters are not putting enough runs on the board.

[Chakdephatte]

That's a wonderful trio. 

[rollingstoned]

2 hours ago, Nikhil_cric said:

The real disappointment is Jadeja.  With all his experience, he simply can't vary his speeds even now and got very little dip or turn.

 

 

 

I don't remember when Jadeja ever bowled a ball under 90 km/hr. 

[Lord]

14 hours ago, Nikhil_cric said:

How is that the problem when they have shown exactly why our spin bowling is so average?

 

Maharaj and Harmer spun the ball massively and varied their speeds very well. 

 

Harmer is a brilliant spinner who knows how to set batsmen up and take wickets by varying speeds and trajectories to lure batsmen into false shots. 

 

Sundar has a lot of raw ability but he doesn't have the skill to do what Harmer did. 

 

And Jadeja's raw stats are terrible. 

 

We lost to Jansen and Harmer, essentially. 

 

Because every bowling attack needs some scores to defend. In Kolkata Test we bowled them out for 159 & 153 and only had to chase 123. Still fell short by 30. How is bowling at any fault?

 

As for bowling speeds, they are bowling speeds that have been working since the last decade. 

 

The slower speeds have worked against Indian and Pak batsmen. Indian bats hardly used sweep or feet movement to counter it. If you allow bowler to bowl how they want, they gonna run over you. 

[BacktoCricaddict]

I watched the whole thing. Super-fascinating. These guys are savants. But, I think they did not directly address a key point - lack of practice time due to all-format commitments. @putrevus and others have talked about specialists vs non-specialists. That concept needs to be applied to formats more than cricketing skills. 

 

Bavuma, Harmer, Maharaj, Muthusamy - none of them are in the T20 set up. They spent a lot of time prior to the series practicing test skills and became the bedrock of the team. On the other hand, look at our team - every one of these guys is a 2-format player and many are 3-format players. Different skill-sets, different mindsets that need to be practiced just before a  series. No point blaming Washington Sundar for his lack of test-cricket spin-skills. Someone like that needs 1000s of overs to be up to par for test bowling.

 

What we need are 3-4 guys who are test specialists. May be the #3 bat, the frontline spinners, and a M.O. specialist bat. 

[BacktoCricaddict]

On 11/30/2025 at 1:12 AM, Nikhil_cric said:

How is that the problem when they have shown exactly why our spin bowling is so average?

 

Maharaj and Harmer spun the ball massively and varied their speeds very well. 

 

Harmer is a brilliant spinner who knows how to set batsmen up and take wickets by varying speeds and trajectories to lure batsmen into false shots. 

 

Sundar has a lot of raw ability but he doesn't have the skill to do what Harmer did. 

 

And Jadeja's raw stats are terrible. 

 

We lost to Jansen and Harmer, essentially. 

And Muthusamy.

[vvvslaxman]

One of the biggest miss from this team is inability to exploit the conditions. WHen the condition is overly helpful in terms of swing or seam movement we just don't seem to use it compared to opponents. Most recnetly when we got bowled out for 46 runs in Bengaluru there was still some assistance for a while. But we just could not exploit it. Same way there was a big build up during pink ball test. Aussies were terrified of facing Bumrah under lights with pink ball. That dud bad bastmsn mcsweeney survived more than 50 balls against Bumrah with pink ball. We just could not exploit it or did just enough to exploit it.   India needs a proper swing bowler in this line up. I think Ishant sharma is one guy who does better. In the past Ashish Nehra, RP singh, Zaheer used to exploit conditions India needs a bit more variety in this line up. Siraj when in mood can exploit it. 

[AKane]

19 hours ago, Lord said:

In Kolkata Test we bowled them out for 159 & 153 and only had to chase 123. Still fell short by 30. How is bowling at any fault?

Yes the batsmen fell short in Kolkata but their bowlers have a say in the match too. Their bowlers get paid too.

 

How about Guwahati? Did the bowlers do their job there? Compared to Jansen(pace) and Harmer(spin)?

 

Maybe in Kolkata    our bowlers bowled well but their bowlers bowled better.

Maybe in Guwahati our bowlers bowled crap but their bowlers bowled well.

Edited December 1, 2025 by AKane

[vvvslaxman]

31 minutes ago, AKane said:

Yes the batsmen fell short in Kolkata but their bowlers have a say in the match too. Their bowlers get paid too.

 

How about Guwahati? Did the bowlers do their job there? Compared to Jansen(pace) and Harmer(spin)?

 

Maybe in Kolkata    our bowlers bowled well but their bowlers bowled better.

Maybe in Guwahati our bowlers bowled crap but their bowlers bowled well.

We are inferior to SA in both departments. Let us admit it. They don't even have their best fast bowler in the side.