India slump from T20 World Cup winners to crisis as Sri Lanka Tests loom
India’s men’s cricket team have moved from defending their T20 World Cup title in Ahmedabad five months ago to a side beset by poor results, injuries and off-field uncertainty as they prepare to begin a tour of Sri Lanka on Friday.
India’s T20 World Cup defence in Ahmedabad remains the high point, the side becoming the first to win the tournament on home soil and backing that run with team totals in excess of 250 in both the semifinals and the final; the IPL followed and a 15-year-old, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, emerged with a series of eye-catching innings that pushed him towards international selection. The momentum evaporated after the IPL when Ireland stunned India 2-0 in a Twenty20 International series at the end of June, with the home side winning the second match by one run after breezing past Shreyas Iyer’s side in the opener. Suryakumar Yadav had been removed as captain because of a poor run of scores despite his leadership at the World Cup, and Shreyas Iyer led a new leadership group alongside head coach Gautam Gambhir on subsequent tours.
England delivered another setback when Harry Brook and his team-mates accounted for India in a four-nil series in the United Kingdom after the first match was washed out, denying the new leadership group any success on that tour. The only notable recovery overseas came in Zimbabwe, where India completed a 3-0 sweep in three fixtures at the Harare Sports Club while V.V.S. Laxman stood in as head coach, briefly easing the sense of alarm that followed the Ireland and England defeats.
Injuries have compounded the results problems: Washington Sundar, Nitish Kumar and Harshit Rana were all ruled out of the two-Test tour of Sri Lanka long before the selectors under Ajit Agarkar met to pick the squad. Jasprit Bumrah had been picked among those selected but with the caveat that he needed to clear a fitness test at the Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru, a caveat that also applied to left-handed batter Sai Sudharsan. Bumrah has since been ruled out after failing to recover from an impact injury to his left knee sustained while fielding in the second One-Day International against England in Cardiff some three weeks back.
The handling of injuries has become a point of contention with criticism aimed at the Centre of Excellence; speculation around selection and management has also extended to Ajit Agarkar’s future as chief selector. Insiders say Agarkar indicated to the Board of Control for Cricket in India as early as February that he would like to be relieved of his responsibilities in September, though there is no clarity and he still has a couple of years of the maximum permissible five to serve out.
Agarkar took over as chairman of the senior selection panel in the middle of 2023 and his tenure has included both notable successes and significant setbacks, some during Gautam Gambhir’s time as head coach and others when Rahul Dravid held that role. Among the accomplishments listed during his stint are two T20 World Cup trophy runs and “an unbeaten charge through the draw at the Champions Trophy in Dubai in March 2005,” while the lows have largely been in Test cricket at home.
Those Test lows include a 0-3 defeat by New Zealand in October-November 2024 and a 0-2 loss to South Africa in November last year; V.V.S. Laxman’s name has been mentioned as a potential successor to Agarkar, having stood in as coach for Dravid and more recently for Gambhir. Laxman’s reputation as a crisis man, compared in the article to Ravi Shastri, is cited alongside the immediate schedule pressure: India have nine Tests lined up in the next seven months, four of them away in Sri Lanka and New Zealand.
India’s think-tank will also head to Sri Lanka without assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate and fielding coach T. Dileep, who are described as surplus to requirement, and some senior players have privately expressed insecurity about mixed messaging from the regular backroom group. India’s tour of Sri Lanka begins on Friday with a three-day First Class fixture, and those matches will form part of their World Test Championship campaign.
