Gautam Gambhir's shocking slump in Test cricket

Two and a half years ago, Gautam Gambhir was seen as one of the best emerging batsmen in cricket. Since then the 21 Test slump has been shocking. Arunabha Sengupta traces the plummeting fortunes of the opener in Test cricket, wondering whether he is focused about the five-day game.

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January 2010.

 

The top of the Indian batting card had never looked so good. Virender Sehwag was scorching the world with his flashing willow. And at the other end, at long last, stood an opener of rare quality.

 

Eulogies followed, some deliberately and delightfully just off the mark. Sehwag claimed that Gautam Gambhir was the best opening batsman of India since Sunil Gavaskar. The world agreed with an indulgent smile that it was true but for Sehwag himself. Runs flowed, the sun shone and everything was well with the cricket world.

The unbelievable slump

 

Indeed, there was cause to celebrate the rise of Gambhir. In 29 Tests he had amassed a staggering 2760 runs with nine hundreds at a stratospheric average of 57.50. He had just had an amazing run of five centuries in as many Tests, stopping with 68 in the sixth. Two of these came in Bangladesh, but two excellent ones were notched up in the historically run-arid pastures of Napier and Wellington. He averaged a staggering 71 abroad. Finally, it seemed, India could go into bat with guns blazing from both ends.

 

In late 2009, it prompted Harsha Bhogle to wonder in an excellent article –“How good is Gambhir?” He was impressed enough to club the young man with JP Duminy and AB de Villiers in his list of three best young batsmen. And he was sufficiently disturbed by the few Tests he foresaw India playing in the future to state that the southpaw might go down as the last major Indian batsman whose career could be judged by feats in the Test world. 

 

However, the astute Bhogle did add a caveat: “A fair assessment should only come after Gambhir has played about 50 matches, but if he continues in the form he is in, or even in relative proximity of it, he should prove Sehwag right.”

 

Now, after two and a half years, Gambhir has played exactly 50 Tests. He has not proved Sehwag right. In fact, from then on, he has hardly done anything right in Test cricket.

 

The 21 Tests he has played in this period has brought him a measly return of 1010 runs at 27.29, with just eight fifties in 38 innings. The figure under the centuries column has remained steadfastly fixed at nine. His overall Test average has plummeted down from 57.50 to 44.35.

 

Gambhir’s struggle	Tests	Inn	Runs	Ave	100s	50s
Before Jan 2010	29	52	2760	57.50	9	11
Since Feb 2010	21	38	1010	27.29	0	8

 

The poor run started with the 2010 home series against the Proteans. Apart from a few glimpses of his old form during the 2010-11 tour to South Africa, he has not really managed to recover.

 

A bad patch is normal in the course of a cricket career, but if it stretches across two and a half years over 21 Test matches, alarm bells start ringing loud and clear.

Is the focus in the right areas?

 

In international cricket, technology has made it possible for opposition teams to put the batting technique of individual batsmen under microscope to analyse every crack and fissure. Hence, the onus is on the batsman to continually evolve his technique, to stay that one all-important step ahead of the bowlers around the world.

 

In Gambhir’s case, there seems to be a lot of backlog in this regard. The way the Englishmen, Australians and now the Kiwis have consistently got him out either fishing or fending is proof enough that the deciphered Gambhir code is freely available in the market.

 

His continuing inclination to dab balls down to the third man may have got him loads of runs in overs-limit cricket, but has brought about too many dismissals in the longer format. Even in the latest series against the Kiwis, he perished in this manner two out of the three times he batted, being bowled shouldering arms the other time. The repetition of the same mistake over and over again makes one wonder whether there is any work going on to iron out the alarming wrinkles.

 

The following table provides further insights into his struggle.

 

Further insights into Gambhir’s struggle	Strike Rate	Ave inngs	4s/ innings	6's
Before Jan 2010	54.51	105 balls	6.7	1 per 7 inn.
Since Feb 2010	46.73	58 balls	3.5	0

 

On the other hand, his performance in the shorter versions has continued to improve. During the same period of decline in Test cricket, he has scored at a remarkably high 48.22 in One-Day Internationals. Besides, his body language emphatically established him as one of the most committed players in the Indian Premier League (IPL).

 

This does work in his favour.

 

His IPL triumph and regular big scores in the ODIs have gone a long way in covering up much of his Test match failures. In the crazy cricket calendar of the day, it is difficult to isolate the three formats and evaluate effectiveness in each. Not too many cricket followers and, more importantly, decision makersare inclined to retrieve the numbers and zero in on the actual abysmal state of affairs.

 

Obviously, it also helps that the current venom of caustic critics is aimed at Sachin Tendulkar – incidentally a batsman who has scored 2299 runs at 53.46 during the discussed period of Gambhir’s 21-Test slide towards the nadir.

 

This leads one to ask: Is Gambhir focussing in the right areas? Success in the shorter formats also underline that his struggle in Tests is more complex than simple lack of form. It is much more likely that he has not been putting in the focused effort to answer the stiffer questions in the more rigorous examination of Test cricket.

 

Leading Kolkata Knight Riders to victory in the IPL may be a great way to showcase one’s batting and leadership talents on the largest stage in front of maximum eyeballs, but it is hardly adequate preparation for the five-day game. And whereas IPL is an undeniable part of the modern cricket schedule, one would have been keener to rejoice at his success in that arena if similar intent, focus and results were visible in Test matches.

 

The assurance of being the greatest opening batsman since Sunil Gavaskar is largely forgotten. His ability to score all around the world has remained dubious. He is still a decent enough batsman, whose brilliance is there for all to see in the shorter formats. For the sake of Indian cricket one wishes that he will transform at least a part of this success into Test matches as well – to fulfil at least a fraction ofhis earlier promise.

 

(Arunabha Sengupta is a cricket historian and Chief Cricket Writer at CricketCountry. He writes about the history and the romance of the game, punctuated often by opinions about modern day cricket, while his post-graduate degree in statistics peeps through in occasional analytical pieces. The author of three novels, he can be followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/senantix)