With the visiting South Africa inflicting a 2-0 loss against home favourites India in the recently concluded two-Test series, the hosts also lost a series at home in consecutive years for the third time in their Test history.
With Indian coach Gautam Gambhir terming the current Indian team as a team in ‘transition’, former England all-rounder Moeen Ali has disagreed with the Indian coach’s transition phase remark and has termed the current Indian Test team consisting of ‘top top’ players. Recent months have seen the likes of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma retiring from Test cricket, but Ali shared how India are on a ‘different’ level while playing at home.
“I don’t know, it’s tough because India expects to win in India all the time. It’s not just the news of this series, it’s the news of the New Zealand series. I know he’s (Gambhir) saying it’s a rebuild, but it’s not really a rebuild. These guys are top players, one of the top top players. But having watched a bit, I mean they had a good result in the UK, I thought it was a draw in the end, but India really prides itself. India’s on a bit of a different level where they pride themselves on that home in particular,” Ali Told NDTV.
India’s 408-run loss at Guwahati also meant that they suffered their heaviest defeat in Test history in terms of runs and the series loss also meant that India had lost five Tests in a span of seven Tests at home for the first time in 60 years. With Ravichandran Ashwin retiring from international cricket, the series against South Africa saw Indian spinners, including Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Washington Sundar, and Axar Patel, not being able to control South African batsmen on most occasions. Ali also talked about the loss of R Ashwin as a ‘massive’ one.
“I think Ashwin is a massive miss. The spinners they have are good, but Ashwin was the guy who just gave them that. Especially in India, he was outstanding and I think he’s a big miss,” Ali shared.
Gambhir, when asked about the series loss after the massive loss at Guwahati, had termed the Indian Test team going through transition. “I don’t give excuses. I’ve never done that in the past. I will never do it in the future…Test cricket is never easy when you’re playing against a top-quality side. So you’ve got to give them time as well. So for me, I think that is something they’ll keep learning. That is important. Because I know that I hate using this word transition. This is exactly what transition is,” Gambhir had told the media after the loss.
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