IND vs NZ 46 All Out: Bengaluru Batting Horror - A timely wake up call for Rohit Sharma & Co

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Test cricket, the very name suggests, it will test the players. On Thursday (October 17), at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, it was bizarre the Indian think-tank opted to bat against New Zealand in such conditions after heavy rains in previous days.

Was this bravado or brainless, India, made a decision not to bowl first. What followed was a procession to the pavilion, very reminiscent of what happened in the first Test against Australia in Adelaide in December 2020, all out for 36.

This was slightly better, if you are cynical, as India scored 46 against the crazy fast bowling of Matt Henry and Wiliam O'Rourke, who grabbed nine wickets. To see five Indian batters score zero was a painful sight, certainly very different from what one saw in the two-Test series at home in 2024 against England and Bangladesh.

There has been needless distraction since the rain disrupted play on Wednesday (October 16). Instead of focusing on what the conditions will be, the chatter was on how it will affect India in the ICC World Test Championships ranking cycle and if they will make the final next year. There was no need for all this, since India are at the top now and to do well against New Zealand would have been more important.

How and why Rohit Sharma and Gautam Gambhir decided India should bat first was baffling, since the overcast conditions were conducive to swing and seam movement, as demonstrated by Henry and O'Rourke. The captain, later in the press conference, admitted misjudging the track which had been under the cover for over two days and overlooked the dampness.

The way wickets fell was a horror sight to watch. It exposed the myth India are now world beaters and even at home when conditions are different, they are gullible. If preparations for the Australia tour are vital, did the Indians forget they first have to take on a spirited New Zealand side?

That five batters fell for a duck was a sign they had not prepared well. In overcast conditions, batting is all about technique, application and how to challenge the bowlers. The best in the past have struggled against top-quality fast bowling abroad, including the Sachin Tendulkar era.

Imagine, there was so much hype over Virat Kohli getting to 9,000 runs in Test cricket. He is 53 runs short of it at an aggregate of 8947. But to go for a blob, devoured by O'Rourke was not a great sight.

Clearly, if King Kohli is also struggling at his adopted home ground in heavy conditions, this made for bad viewing. How does one explain KL Rahul, also a home batter, falling for zero, again a victim of O'Rourke - who is playing his fourth Test. Perhaps, the only batter who tried to make a match of it was Rishabh Pant who scored 20.

There are lessons to learn from this ugly collapse for 46 runs. It shows India are not the world-beater in Test cricket. Firstly, in 2021, India lost to New Zealand in the ICC Test Championship final at Southampton. The same Kiwis have come to haunt India, again, in Bengaluru.

If a lesson was needed that India need to keep planning and performing, this rude jolt to India under coach Gautam Gambhir has come at the right time. Get the boys to perform plus the coach himself under scrutiny, this is interesting. Cricket fans are a very discerning lot and will not spare below-par cricket.

Was it a case where Gambhir did not have faith in his own fast bowlers, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohd Siraj? They could have also exploited the conditions. The way Devon Conway has batted, both Gambhir and Rohit Sharma have been shown in poor light.