I grew up believing a Test match was not long but properly sized. Five days gave a contest room to change its mind. A batter could look helpless on Thursday and indispensable on Saturday; a pitch could begin as a road and end as cross-examination. India’s modern cricket economy, by contrast, increasingly treats the format like inherited furniture: too prestigious to discard, too inconvenient to place in the main room. We celebrate a famous series win with operatic emotion, then return to scheduling and selection habits that make the next collapse more likely.
My complaint is not nostalgia for white clothing as a moral virtue. Limited-overs cricket has expanded the sport, paid players and produced genuine tactical invention. The IPL is not a villain sneaking through a side door; it is the centre of cricket’s commercial reality. But the BCCI cannot sell Test cricket as the highest examination while preparing candidates in the corridor. Its own official platform shows the crowded architecture of Indian cricket, while the public record of India’s Test results reminds us that dominance is never permanent. The problem begins when success convinces the board that the system need not be tended.
Reputation is not preparation
India’s established batters are often asked to move between formats, continents and technical demands with barely a pause. Then, when a top order misreads length or plays late swing with white-ball hands, discussion collapses into personality. One camp demands immediate retirement; another treats a famous name as evidence of present form. Both responses avoid the institutional issue. Red-ball batting is maintained through red-ball innings. Nets help, experience helps and talent matters, but none replaces time in the middle against bowlers constructing dismissals over spells.
I want selectors to use domestic cricket as more than a ceremonial threat delivered after failure. If the Ranji Trophy is the foundation, Test aspirants must appear there whenever physically and logistically possible. That expectation should apply to senior players without becoming a punishment. A domestic match is not detention. It is where a batter can rebuild an innings without a bilateral series carrying the cost. It also tells the hundreds of professionals outside the national bubble that their competition remains connected to selection.
The counterargument is workload, and it is real. India’s best players cannot participate in everything without breaking down. Fast bowlers especially require managed workloads, not macho speeches. But management should involve choices, not magical thinking. If a player is rested from a low-priority white-ball series to prepare for Tests, I will applaud. If he skips all first-class cricket yet arrives at a major Test assignment because his brand value makes exclusion unthinkable, I will not. The board has enough money and depth to design individual programmes. What it lacks at times is the willingness to inconvenience its most marketable product.
The bowling pipeline needs specialists, not auditions
India’s pace revolution deserves admiration. For years we fantasised about one fast bowler; now selection arguments involve several. Yet abundance can produce carelessness. A bowler capable of two electric IPL overs is not automatically ready to hold a Test match together across twenty overs in heat. The skills overlap but the job descriptions differ. Red-ball bowlers need repeatable lengths, patience when the ball softens, defensive control and bodies conditioned for multiple spells. Those virtues rarely become viral clips, which is precisely why a board must value them institutionally.
Spin selection has its own distortions. India sometimes treats batting depth as the answer to every tactical question, preferring the bowler who extends the lineup even when another is more threatening. Balance matters, but a bowler’s first responsibility is taking or controlling wickets. On turning pitches, exaggerated conditions can conceal differences in craft; abroad, those differences become obvious. The finest spinner is not merely the one who can exploit a crater. He is the one who changes pace, trajectory and angle when the surface offers only conversation, not confession.
Wicketkeeping is another position where convenience has blurred standards. A spectacular batter who keeps adequately may be the correct choice in some conditions. In others, a missed chance costs more than thirty additional runs. I would like selection discussions to acknowledge that trade-off openly rather than pretending every preferred player is simultaneously the best keeper, batter and tactical brain. Test teams become stronger when roles are defined honestly. Public relations prefers heroes without weaknesses; cricket punishes teams that believe the brochure.
Money has created responsibility
The BCCI’s wealth is frequently discussed as though revenue itself were the achievement. It is an advantage, certainly, and Indian cricket has earned much of it by building a vast audience. But wealth should purchase resilience. It should finance quality pitches, specialist coaching, sports science, rehabilitation, A-team tours and meaningful first-class wages. It should ensure a promising fast bowler does not have to choose between financial security and long-form development. If the richest board cannot protect the most demanding format, poorer boards have little chance.
Scheduling is where priorities become visible. A board may issue affectionate statements about Test cricket, but the calendar tells the truth. Preparation windows, recovery days and A tours do not produce the immediate returns of another televised series. Their value appears later, often in the fourth innings of an away Test when technique and conditioning are exposed. I would accept fewer fixtures if each major series received better preparation. Volume is not proof of commitment. Sometimes it is a way of monetising the badge while weakening the team wearing it.
Supporters also bear responsibility. We demand aggression because highlights reward it, then accuse a batter of irresponsibility when conditions require denial. We celebrate a five-day contest only if India wins. A draw saved through disciplined batting is called boring; a risky chase that fails is called brainless. Test cricket cannot survive as a prestige format if viewers value only domination. Its appeal is resistance, uncertainty and the possibility that an opponent plays magnificently. Loving the game means tolerating evidence that India is not entitled to every session.
Selection must become less sentimental
I am not advocating a teenage revolution after every defeat. Experience is valuable precisely because Test cricket asks players to solve unfamiliar problems under fatigue. But experience becomes sentiment when selection no longer follows performance, fitness or role. The board should communicate broad criteria without turning every meeting into reality television. Players deserve dignity; the team deserves accountability. A senior can be rested, dropped and recalled without the nation staging a funeral. Healthy systems allow reputations to bend without breaking careers.
Nor should captains and coaches be evaluated only by trophies. They shape preparation, succession and tactical honesty. Did they develop a second line of bowlers? Did they use home conditions to test skills rather than manufacture lotteries? Did they give a reserve batter enough matches to become a real option? Did they protect an injured player from a heroic but foolish return? These questions matter because tournament outcomes contain luck. Process is not an excuse for losing, but results without process are rented success.
India has the players, money and audience to remain a Test power. What it needs is the humility to behave as though that status can be lost. The format will not be secured by anniversary montages or declarations that it is “ultimate.” It will be secured when domestic performances alter selection, when preparation beats promotion and when specialists are allowed to specialise. The BCCI may prefer us to focus on the next event. I keep thinking about the longer innings: whether Indian cricket is building a team that can endure after the current stars and their advertising contracts have walked back to the pavilion.
