Focus on India’s future before Test hiatus starts

The question on many cricket fans’ minds is: how long will it take India to wrap up the second Test match versus West Indies starting at Port of Spain on July 20?

This series marked the Indian cricket team’s transition into the 2023-25 World Test Championship cycle, but for many skeptical viewers these two Test matches are no more than an extended nets session given how poor West Indies have been over the years. And to watch their sorry capitulation at Roseau last week was indeed painful.

That Test match saw India absolutely smash West Indies inside three days, with Ravichandran Ashwin marking his first match in the Caribbean since 2016 – yes, he was astonishingly left out of both Tests in 2019 – with 12 wickets and the 21-year-old debutant Yashasvi Jaiswal bat 387 deliveries across 501 minutes for a very assured 171, which fetched him the match award.

Some insipid batting aside, what made one raise an eyebrow was why the home team would roll out a surface on which the ball was spinning from day one, effectively handing India the Test right there. Given West Indies’ poor batting record against spin and the presence of Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, such a track made little sense. West Indies have bolstered their squad with a third spinning option, but let’s hope the track at Port of Spain offers more to their fast bowlers so that we can get some competitive cricket. Otherwise as witnessed last week, Indian and West Indian cricket fans might again have to switch from this match to The Ashes to watch a contest.

While West Indies will have to make personnel changes, India might only drop the left-arm seamer Jaydev Unadkat who was required to bowl just nine overs in the first Test, from which he failed to take a wicket. The uncapped pacer Mukesh Kumar is an option, but if India feel the conditions will assist spin there is no reason to play a third pacer. In such a scenario, Axar Patel could slot right in.

Shardul Thakur, India’s specialist overseas allrounder, bowled just seven overs at Roseau so he could also sit out if the management feels he won’t be required. These minor tweaks aside, India are unlikely to tinker with their combination given all that is riding on the likes of Jaiswal, Shubman Gill and Ishan Kishan over the next decade.

Jaiswal’s journey from Uttar Pradesh to selling street food in Mumbai to age-level cricket for India and then 625 runs for Rajasthan Royals in this year’s IPL has been well documented. That journey having toughened him for sterner challenges, Jaiswal marked his international Test with an innings of immense concentration and application that you marveled at his composure in these times of T20 cricket (and Jaiswal’s achievements in IPL 2023 include a record 13-ball fifty as well as a hundred off 53 balls). Here, it is pertinent to note the role that his IPL franchise has played in Jaiswal’s development. The young opener was sent to Talegaon in Dabhade on the outskirts of Pune for a batting camp organised by Rajasthan Royals, where under the tutelage of renowned batting coach Zubin Barucha he worked for hours per day on just a handful of shots.

That hard work is what could, potentially, set Jaiswal apart from his Mumbai team-mate and fellow one-time teenage prodigy Prithvi Shaw who in 2018 made a sparkling 134 on Test debut versus West Indies, but since then has fallen away so dramatically that an India recall looks some years away.

Gill, 23, is the heir apparent to Virat Kohli at No 4 in this lineup and a future captain. He failed in the first Test and will be eager to cash in against this West Indies team, while the second Indian debutant, Kishan, must be itching to score as well after an odd maiden innings of 1* from 20 deliveries. India are far from locking in a Test wicketkeeper until Rishabh Pant returns, and thus Kishan has plenty to do to keep KS Bharat out of the XI.

India are expected to win this Test, and will probably do so with days to spare if West Indies are as abject as they were in Dominica. This team next plays Test cricket in December, so getting more out of Jaiswal, Gill and Kishan – as well as the vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane, who is living on borrowed time – is imperative.