India’s Test tactics put to the test, England’s preparations crucial

Of course, not everyone who performs at ‘A’ team level is good enough to play Test cricket, but at least give them a chance. This is not a knee-jerk reaction but just an observation that if India are to have such disasters never happen again in Test cricket, they need to invest again in having specialists like England. If you look at England, there are very few players being considered for the white-ball competition. The rest are professional Test cricketers who spend all their time honing their skills in the long game.

What this does is clarify roles and responsibilities. It stems from the peak of captain Ben Stokes, who was so committed to the form that he almost gave up every color in cricket.

Now, not everyone in Indian cricket can be a talisman like Virat Kohli, so it is a bit much to expect everyone to perform well in all the matches they play. Kohli doesn’t need as much time to adapt to the format as others do because he is much better. He might have hit the net once before the Test series in South Africa but managed to score a half-century when everyone else failed, except KL Rahul.

Others need to play some regular red-ball cricket in the middle and make proper focused preparations for the important Test series against England instead of wasting time playing pointless T20Is.