Perhaps because of how much India have won in the last decade and a half, especially at home, a bit of complacency has set in. Not from the players’ point of view, but on how a major loss is looked at —
it seems to have become easier to push it off as an aberration, a thorn of a blip in the otherwise rosy garden.
But a 1-2 series defeat against a New Zealand team that was missing Mitchell Santner, Tom Latham, Kane Williamson, Matt Henry, and many others competing for the starting 11 is anything but fragrant. It stinks.
We are closer to the first match of the 2027 ODI World Cup than the 2023 final against Australia. New Zealand’s almost-B-team exposed some major issues India are facing and sounded an alarm that, amid the T20 World Cups and the IPLs, this format requires immediate attention, as soon as someone starts to care.
Who is Ravindra Jadeja’s replacement?
The easiest conclusion to take from the ODI series was that Ravindra Jadeja’s time in blue was done. The concerns had been there since 2024, but they were bookended by the hope of him doing a Virat Kohli and finding his form back, considering he’s as fit as the Delhi batter.
However, skill-wise, Jadeja has regressed. This was the first ODI series in his career that he played three matches in without taking a wicket. With the bat, he just couldn’t shake off the breaks, and his performance was not good enough for an India number seven in this format.
However, removing Jadeja isn’t the problem. Replacing him is.
The obvious answer is Axar Patel. He’s more prime age and has played a ton of ODI cricket at number seven. But Axar is a much better player of spin than pace, and his numbers with both bat and ball in Australia and South Africa — pacy conditions, just like what India will find for the 2027 ODI World Cup — are abysmal.
He can fit in the team at say, number four, but that would mean a lot of rejigging.
The fact is India don’t have a clear upgrade available to partner KL Rahul and allow Hardik Pandya to bat at six or seven according to the situation outside Asia. Worse, there aren’t many spin all-rounders making their case in the Vijay Hazare Trophy for this particular role either.
Washington Sundar could be an option, but he turns the ball the same way as Kuldeep Yadav. India might think short-term and play just one spinner, with Nitish Reddy coming in at seven, but then it’ll be accepting a clear weakness in team building, which certain oppositions might be able to exploit.
Kuldeep Yadav concern
According to Himanish Ganjoo, an analyst who worked with the Indian team during the 2023 World Cup and the 2024 T20 World Cup, Kuldeep’s underlying numbers have taken a hit in recent weeks, with his turn and drift going down and control getting worse. Daryll Mitchell regularly exploited that by sweeping or stepping out against him, leading to one of his worst series as a middle-overs enforcer.
If it was just a lack of rhythm, then he should recover in the IPL, but if he doesn’t, then the concern would be huge. It’s a slightly easier issue to solve because India have Varun Chakaravarthy in their ranks as competition and backup, but he has never played an ODI in pace-friendly conditions and India, for some reason, are suddenly not picking him for home rubbers either.
Dropping the most experienced option at this stage would probably be the last measure for the team. But they’ll need to balance it with developing and testing backups, just in case.
How long is the rope for Rohit Sharma?
Rohit Sharma is in the same boat as Kuldeep. Skipper Shubman Gill was right to shut down the concerns about his form as a simple failure to convert starts.
But if not a red flag, there’s certainly an orange flag somewhere in it. This was the first series (more than one match) in almost seven years that Rohit had a strike rate of less than 80.
Assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate was asked whether he had deliberately changed the tactic before the third match.
“I don’t think it’s a conscious approach,” ten Doeschate said. “He’s such a brutal player, but he’s actually a touch player at the end of the day. He times the ball… so as soon as the wickets aren’t very good, it’s going to be difficult for him to look in fluent mode like he normally is. He’s definitely not the sort of guy to play for himself. It’s just a combination of the wickets being slightly difficult and maybe just being a little bit short on cricket leading into the series.”
The team’s coach saying this is concerning. Rohit will hardly play outside of ODIs till the 2027 World Cup, and not all pitches will be flat. His IPL record hasn’t been great, so can the team expect him to perform as per the needs four months later in the next ODI series against England?
It’s a tricky situation to ponder for the selectors. Several opening options are waiting in the wings, and Rohit isn’t getting any younger. A legend like him can never be ruled out from finding as much consistency as Virat Kohli has, but the team will need to find the balance between backing him and doing what’s best.
Safeguarding Shubman Gill, Harshit Rana
Several times in the past year, Shubman has looked jaded. Similar signs were there for Harshit Rana in this series, when, despite being arguably India’s best bowlers, he was having extremely off spells.
It could be to do with how many matches those two have played as the all-format stars in 2025, constantly switching. For Gill, even Ravichandran Ashwin pointed out how his technique had a sense of confusion to it, which happens when you change formats like he has had to.
It’s time to draw some boundaries and set the priorities right for these players who are increasingly important to the team’s future, just like it has been done for Jasprit Bumrah.
