'Something is seriously wrong': Kumble blows away IND's shabby batting show; wants Gambhir and Agarkar to 'introspect'

Former India head coach Anil Kumble showed no mercy in criticizing India's shabby batting performance in the recently concluded Test series against New Zealand. Kumble opined that the repeated top-order collapses throughout the series were the reason why India suffered a whitewash on home soil for the first time (minimum of three matches), and called on the management and selectors to “sit down and introspect to do” before going to the US. Australia for the Border-Gavaskar series later this month.

After picking up the last New Zealand wicket early on Day 3 and setting themselves a target of 147 at the hateful Wankhede track, India were touted to take the consolation victory day after their first Test series defeat at home in 12 years. However, the home side's batters collapsed and rotated with Ajaz Patel taking a five-wicket haul in the first innings, taking his match haul to nine wickets as India were left reeling at 92 for six at lunch.

Rishabh Pant offered some resistance against New Zealand tweakers but Ajaz delivered the final blow shortly in the second session on Sunday and the rest of the line-up fell apart within an hour with the Mumbai-born spinner taking a record 10. -wicket in an innings on his last trip to the city, completing a six-fer.

Speaking to JioCinema after the loss in the third Test, Kumble slammed India's choice of picking rank turners in both the second Test in Pune and the match in Mumbai, and earlier praised the Kiwis for countering both the fields as the conditions at the three locations in the series to script the historic victory. It was the first time ever that New Zealand won three Tests in a series, home or away, and the first ever to win three consecutive away Tests

“India have to look inward and then, you know, also understand what kind of surface you have to play on. I think we even talked about it in Pune before the start of the Test match itself. It was a matter of winning, but it's certainly given New Zealand a chance to come out there and then do what they've done exceptionally well. Everyone has a good soft word and a nice word to say about the Kiwis, but this was a performance where New Zealand dominated in the series. Yes, of course The win was only 25 runs, but the way they handled the pitches, the conditions, the bowling, and that's what you need to give New Zealand credit the pitch went to the heads. of the Indian batsmen. Of course, the quality of Indian spin versus the quality of New Zealand, I don't think we even need to talk about the kind of experienced bowling attack that India has,” he said.

'Indian batters going to spinners is worrying'

Besides the six batting collapses India suffered against New Zealand, Kumble felt the bigger concern was their struggle against spin. The series saw 37 wickets fall against spinners, with the home side averaging less than 25 against the variety.

“The top order is that not even a session has been batted throughout the series, except that one partnership in Bengaluru in the second innings. Further, you know, in five innings, to just go through a batting line-up like the Indian batting line-up in one session certainly says a lot about the approach, the attitude, and of course requires many questions and how you could get out of this, just before the quadrant.

“On these pitches, if the Indian batting is constantly going to spinners and you are not able to play a session, then it becomes really worrying.”

In the wake of the poor batting show, the legendary off-spinner called for 'introspection'.

“Every time the spinners come on, it's not like there's any improvement from one game to the next. Yes, a few of them have made certain adjustments and that has definitely helped in the batting line-up. Still, I think they collectively as a batting unit have not been able to get out of those collapses that we just talked about, you know in a session to be bowled out to lose five wickets, six wickets in a session that's far too often happened for this setup to sit down and say, look, there's nothing going on. I think the hardest part is to accept that there's a problem. I'm sure this Indian team, if they go sit and introspect, are going to have to understand that there is a serious problem that they need. Look at it and I'm sure we'll talk about that a lot more, but right now it's New Zealand's time because they have it. have achieved the impossible, it is time for the.”