Now or never!

Once again, Team India failed to win the ICC World Test Championship final on Sunday in England. Despite reaching the final for the second time, Indian players failed to perform and lost the match against mighty Australia by 209 runs. Australia from the beginning looked very confident and rock solid, while India looked rather hesitant in their approach. Though Indian bowlers tried their level best to control Australian batters it was too late.

As expected Steve Smith and Travis Head showed their class but Indian batters like Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara, Shubham Gill and even wicket-keeper batsman Srikar Bharat completely failed to show their mettle when required. It was an opportunity for young Bharat to exhibit his skill in the absence of Rishabh Pant, but he failed to capitalise on this opportunity. India’s poor performance did disappoint former players also.

Legendary Indian players like Sunil Gavaskar, Sanjay Manjrekar and Madan Lal crticised batters for their poor shot selections. They even objected to the exclusion of Ravichandran Ashwin from the squad. Ashwin is a world-class bowler and he deserves to be in the team.  Even the way Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane had started in the second innings looked great but on the last day of the match both of them fizzled out in just a few minutes. I feel BCCI should look into the matter now. Team India needs young players in the squad to infuse fresh energy. As we all know, some of our players have already crossed 35, so the Indian team need a bunch of young guns for a better tomorrow.

Shaheen Kashfi,
By email