Former cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar addressed India’s recent batting woes in home conditions, noting how the team has now lost five of their last seven Tests at home, which includes two series sweeps against New Zealand (0-3) and South Africa (0-2).
In the recently concluded Test series against Protes, India’s batting lineup once again got exposed against spinners. The hosts lost the opening Test in Kolkata by 30 runs, failing to chase a modest target of 124 on a crumbling surface. While the pitch served for the Guwahati Test was completely flat, Indian batters let the team down under pressure as their two innings folded for 201 and 140.
Washington Sundar and Ravindra Jadeja were the only Indian batters to cross 100 runs in the two-Test series, while big names like KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant struggled badly. Yashasvi Jaiswal managed a half-century, but barely scored across the remaining innings.
According to Manjrekar, India’s recent home Test debacles stem from deeper systemic issues. He emphasized that domestic batting stars lose their edge once they enter the national setup, playing mostly overseas and arriving underprepared for spin challenge at home.
"There are two reasons India went down 0-3 to New Zealand and 0-2 to South Africa at home. And both teams beat India not by pace, swing or bounce but by spin. One is when an Indian batter scores heavily in domestic cricket and gets selected for India, he becomes like an NRI. In the sense that he hardly plays at home. It's more overseas cricket for Indian batters," Manjrekar said in a video posted on his Instagram account.
The Indian batters did exceptionally well on the tour of England earlier this year, with the likes of Shubman Gill, Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal hitting multiple centuries in batting-friendly conditions.
Manjrekar pointed out that aforementioned names struggle at home because they hardly play first-class cricket on turning tracks, leaving them underprepared for Test matches in Indian conditions.
“Looking at numbers, people like Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill and Rishabh Pant play anything between nine to 12 Test matches away from home the last two years and in India not as many. And when they play Tests at home, there are hardly any first-class matches that they've played. So they come very poorly trained or any recent experience on those kinds of pitches,” he remarked.
