For more than a decade, the Indian Test team worked with confidence. Visitors came, visitors saw, visitors were defeated. Between 2013 and 2024, India did not lose a single Test series at home, a stretch that overlapped neatly with the side’s most intense, uncompromising phase under Virat Kohli.
Those years had a clear order for them. Test cricket sat at the top of the pyramid. The players arrived early, prepared properly and understood that batting in whites is not about looking for quick answers. It was about doing the same things over and over until the pitchers ran out of ideas.
In a recent meeting, former India head coach Rahul Dravid briefly touched on how this period of dominance was built in Indian cricket. Test batting, he said, was about “developing skills that are difficult”, skills that require time, repetition and long spells with the red ball.
That sense of order is no longer guaranteed.
India sink at home
After going 12 years unbeaten in the home series, India have lost two of their last three. A 3-0 in New Zealand in 2024 was followed by a 2-0 defeat to South Africa in November 2025. These were no accidents. They were signs that something fundamental had shifted.
When Dravid spoke about India’s struggles recently, he didn’t point fingers at players or attitudes.
“There were times when we got to a Test match three to four days before the game,” he said. “And if you look back, the last time some of these guys hit a red ball was maybe four or five months ago.
That gap is important. Test cricket does not forgive that.
“That became a real challenge,” Dravid said. “How do you find time to develop some skills that are difficult? Playing on turning lanes or lining the wickets for hours and hours in a Test match is not easy. It takes skill.”
These skills are built slowly. They come from boring net sessions, long practice sessions with a center goal, and days when nothing seems to click. In today’s schedule, that job is often the first thing to disappear.
India’s success with the white ball only highlights the imbalance. They remain one of the strongest T20I teams in the world, currently 3-0 against New Zealand and heading into the T20 World Cup as the defending champions. As Dravid pointed out, this rise has come through sheer volume.
“You’re going to look at the striking part today,” he said. “It’s because they are able to practice it a lot more. A lot of these boys spend two-and-a-half months in the IPL practicing how many sixes they can hit.”
Test cricket meanwhile gets how much time is left.
The pressure of the World Test Championship only tightened things further. With every test now yielding points, teams are chasing results harder than before. Pitches have followed suit and often offer very little room for batters to settle.
India are sixth in the World Test Championship table with 52 points from nine matches and a run percentage of 48.15. That position reflects form, but also preparation.
Shubman Gill problem
If one player captures the reality of India’s demands across all formats, it is Shubman Gill.
Gill’s story is not one of lack of ability. It’s about timing. He has become the all-format face of India at a time when the gap between formats, especially T20 and Tests, has never been greater.
Earlier generations had it easier in this sense. Players like Rohit Sharma and Kohli moved between formats that still spoke a similar language. Gill, on the other hand, was asked to switch between three very different versions of international cricket, often without respite.
His plan for 2025 shows how relentless he was:
- 28 September: Asia Cup final with Gill as vice-captain
- 2 October: The first Test against the West Indies begins, four days later
- October 14: Test series ends
- October 19: Gill flies to Australia as ODI captain for three-match series
- October 25: ODI series ends with India losing 2-1
- October 29: Gill to feature in T20I series
- November 8: Last T20I against Australia
- November 18: Gill returns home to captain India in the two-Test series against South Africa
There was no section designated for the preparation of the red ball. Test cricket arrived right after white-ball cricket and Gill had to adapt as she went along.
The body eventually caught up. Three balls into his innings in the first Test against South Africa in Kolkata, Gill injured his neck. He did not bat again as India were bowled out for 189, taking a 30-run lead. He was ruled out of the rest of the Test, the second Test in Guwahati and the ODI series that followed.
When he returned for the T20I against South Africa, the rhythm was gone.
Since the Asia Cup, Gill has played 15 T20Is, scoring 291 runs at an average of 24.25 and a strike rate of 137.26, without a single fifty. In a vacuum, these numbers are manageable. This was not the case in an Indian T20 side built around openers scoring close to 180 and 190.
Gill didn’t fail because he couldn’t hit. He failed because he was asked to hit in a way that didn’t feel natural to him.
Despite being named vice-captain earlier in the year, Gill was dropped from India’s 15-man squad for the 2026 FIFA World Cup T20. The decision reflected where India’s T20 team was headed, not what Gill was missing.
The problem is that Gill was still expected to be a leader across all formats.
As Test captain, ODI captain and T20I vice-captain, he has shouldered responsibilities across formats while trying to recalibrate his own game time and time again. The tension was obvious.
Gill has since been outspoken about the need for better planning. He asked for a minimum 15-day preparation period before the Test series and urged the Board of Control for Cricket in India to avoid a sudden switch from white-ball cricket to Tests.
“If you see the last two Test series we’ve played, we haven’t had that much time to prepare,” Gill said. “It’s not easy to play in another country and then play on the fourth day in India, especially after traveling for a long time.”
Even if the results go India’s way, he believes the problem remains.
India’s Test future is not in jeopardy as the talent pool has dried up. It’s under pressure because the system expects players to be ready for everything, all the time, without giving them the space to prepare for the toughest format of all.
Shubman Gill is not a problem. He is the clearest sign of that.
– The end
Issued by:
Kingshuk Kusari
Published on:
January 30, 2026