India vs England: Men in Blue's top-order troubles are not going away

It doesn’t take much for things to be forgotten in Indian cricket. Here we are, with T20 International and One-day International series wins over England and already the loss in the last match of the extended Test series is a thing of the past. The fans are happy once again and things seem all rosy. That is, till the next time that the Indian batting’s weakness up the order costs them a crucial match and then the hatchets will be out again, castigating the line-up and choice of players. That’s how it always has been with Indian cricket.

Right now, the vexed issue of India’s top-order troubles is not bothering too many but this is a problem that simply is not going away.

Beginning with the Test match, India have been regularly in trouble with their top-order. The Test saw the visitors teetering at 98/5 in the first inning before Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja did a splendid recovery job. The same two were called up to do a repair job in the second as well with India at 75/3 at one stage.

Read: Yuvraj Singh's tweet on Rishabh Pant goes viral: '45-minute conversation made sense'

Next came the T20Is and even here, the stats aren’t too flattering for the first lot of batters. At 46/2 in 4.5 overs, the runs were flying but so were the wickets. Once more, it was left to the middle-order of Deepak Hooda, Suryakumar Yadav and Hardik Pandya to rescue things.

The second match of the series saw India fall from 49 for no loss to 61/3 before Ravindra Jadeja played a holding role and eventually India were up 2-0 in the three-match series. Same was the story in the next match as the top-order once again failed and India were 31/3 before Yadav played possibly one of the best T20I innings seen for a long time.

The One-dayers saw India’s best top-order display for the entire tour when Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan combined to score 114 runs in the first match to give India a 10-wicket win.

Read: Rohit Sharma sets another captaincy record with series wins in England

Thereafter, things once more went rickety, as India were reduced to 31/4 and in spite of some contributions through the middle-order fell short of their target by 100 runs.

The last match of the tour saw Rishabh Pant’s trip coming a full circle. The wicketkeeper, who had scored a century in the Test, found another three-figure score in what was quite a fine effort, not just in quality but also in maturity. But not before we had the same topsy-turvy top-order.

From 38/3 and 72/4, it took some steady stuff from Pant and superb attacking batting by Pandya as their 133-run fifth-wicket stand decided the series in India’s favour.

While we talk about the top-order troubles, once goes over the many players who came and went. Shubman Gill failed to impress as a Test opener and Ishan Kishan struggled in the T20Is. Neither was able to justify the billing given to them of being the future of Indian batting.

Dhawan’s role in India’s scheme of things is limited, so there is really little point in discussing his contribution on the long-term scenario. He will be in the business of ODI cricket for a while, but that is where he will be restricted. And to be fair, he hasn’t done a bad job overall.

But what about the Big Two? We keep reading and hearing about Virat Kohli’s abominable form, made all the more mystifying by the class of his shots, till he plays one wrong ball. But no one is addressing the other elephant in the room – skipper Rohit Sharma.

Read: Will remember this knock for the rest of my life, says Pant after match-winning ton

The captain was out of action for the only Test, with Jasprit Bumrah leading the side. When Sharma did return, it wasn’t with much of a fanfare.

Sharma had scores of 24, 31 and 11 in the T20Is and then had that fine partnership with Dhawan in the first ODI, where his contribution was 76 not out.

Thereafter, he got a duck in the second match and 17 in the last match.

One could argue that this isn’t the worst streak for a batter, but doesn’t take away from the fact that Sharma is supposed to be the anchor at the top of the batting. He has shown some great shots while he is around, akin to Kohli, but both have just not been in for long enough. Surely not the best preparation for the big things to come.

India is celebrating Pant now, and with reason. But it would be too much to expect the middle-order to be on point all the time. It is essential that the top-order gets its act together at the earliest, since things may not fall in place all the time for the second line of batters.

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