For a few games during the Ireland-England tour, India had to hide at least four players when fielding – a visibly out-of-shape group, all blessed with exceptional cricketing skills.
Even the fitter ones in the team had low energy levels, and their adaptability to the English pitches was unprofessionally slow. The close to 20-odd days that the Indian team got to seamlessly switch from two months of IPL cricket, mostly played on flat tracks, to the lively English-Irish pitches wasn’t enough.
India would lose 6 out of 7 T20s and 2 out of 3 ODIs. The unending intrigue-filled RoKo saga or the wins on the ongoing Zimbabwe tour don’t seem to gloss over the virtual wash-out in the UK.
What was to be a fresh beginning under a new captain and the international launch of IPL stars got a brutal reality check. What was to be the delicate pruning of India’s fresh saplings, their first taste of the sun, turned into a routine weeding process. As those in the know say: “After the England tour, we know who isn’t ready for international cricket.”
In the middle of the disastrous tour, BCCI would react like most institutions do when faced with a crisis. They would schedule a review meeting. Secretary Devajit Saikia would talk about a “course correction… with regards to shortfalls.” Course correction? A complete rewrite is the need of the hour and should be at the top of the meeting’s agenda.
Shreyas Iyer and Axar Patel of India during the 2nd T20 International match between India and Ireland at the Civil Service Cricket Club in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on June 28, 2026. (CREIMAS)
The review can start with a longer detox from IPL, a tournament that by BCCI’s own admission had several protocol violations this year. In a rare case of a BCCI official acknowledging the ills of its biggest money-spinner, secretary Devajit Saikia, during the IPL, had raised the red flag.
“There are unauthorised persons travelling in the team bus. There are unauthorised persons in team hotels, and there are some unauthorised persons in the dugout area… Some people have been spotted in places where they are not supposed to be,” he had told this paper.
This season, there was also the first-ever sighting of a cricketer vaping in the dressing room. The frame of a player puffing away during the course of a game, in the presence of coaches and the rest of the team, hints at a general acceptance of an unhealthy, unsporty culture. If a player can go unchecked in the dressing room, the rigour of gate-keeping in the team hotel can easily be imagined.
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Over the years, several team managements have complained about the lack of fitness of players who turn up for national duty over-cooked and burnt-out after IPL. This time was no different. Exhaustion and listlessness were part of the playing XI that took the field. “There is a lack of sharpness in the team in Ireland and England, and the IPL habits are the reason,” those in the know say.
The entire problem isn’t the players and IPL; the selectors and coaches too can’t go scot-free. They should take the blame for taking IPL performances way too seriously and getting swayed by TV pundits paid to praise every new six-hitter to the skies. They too have succumbed to social media pressure built, in many cases, by over-ambitious agents and brand-builders in a hurry to make a fast buck.
Gautam Gambhir Head Coach of India and Shubman Gill (C) of India during a training session at the Edgbaston, Birmingham, England on July 13, 2026.
Photo: Deepak Malik / CREIMAS for BCCI
Follow that chain far enough and it lands on specific players, and specific calls.
The England tour has raised many questions, the ones that didn’t exist during the IPL, where quality isn’t on par with international cricket. In a 10-team league, each team has only a handful of top players. On most days, it’s an uneven contest, the Special Ones taking on the Standard Ones.
A few samples:
T20 is fine, does Prince Yadav need to play ODIs too?
Does Arshdeep have the discipline to be India’s white-ball pace spearhead?
Does Vaibhav Sooryavanshi need to work more to be open in England, South Africa and Australia?
Gautam Gambhir’s playing XI selections too need a cricketing audit. Has he backed the wrong players, or have those he’s trusted and who’ve done well simply not been consistent?
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During the England Test tour last year, he had heavily banked on Washington Sundar, Nitish Reddy and Dhruv Jurel. Sundar, against South Africa at home in Tests, played as No. 3. Reddy was to be the next Hardik Pandya. Jurel was hyped as a driven keeper with the potential to play all formats. As of today, none of them can get into India’s playing XI without a debate.
Rohit Sharma with India head coach Gautam Gambhir and batting coach Sitanshu Kotak. (CREIMAS)
All three were cricketers with two skills, the kind Gambhir likes. The one big victim of the coach’s obsession has been left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav. It was his alleged poor batting that made him sit out for the five Tests in England last year. This year’s white-ball tour was the same.
In the final ODI of the series, India went with four pacers, none of whom could bat, but Kuldeep still sat out. A player with 194 wickets in 121 ODIs continued to serve drinks for a team that has repeatedly struggled to take wickets.
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And finally, the Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli question that has stretched into an Odyssey. It continues to derail India’s World Cup 2027 plans. If they want them in the team, though several anecdotal signs suggest they don’t, they should indulge them and build around these experienced players.
If they don’t, they should stop the long meetings, the face-to-face conversations that happened in England, and end the intrigue. They shouldn’t allow things to drift.
If the status quo continues, there will be noise, something Rohit, Virat and Gambhir have repeatedly shown an aversion to when questioned by the media. The righteous stand of blaming the messenger for the chaos is getting boring. Outside noise is just an echo of the voices inside the dressing room. That’s a good place to start the proposed review meeting: give the elephant in the room the top seat at the table.
