It has been a major disappointment to follow this last test, not so much the final day's extra-defensive tactics and eventual inevitable collapse but a series and a whole season of under-achievement. Anybody can have a bad day at office, especially if reverting to an old bad habit. But in 2004-05, right from the first test against Australia we observed an apparent lack of aim in the batting except mainly from Sehwag. If this pattern continues, Sehwag may turn out to be Tendulkar of this decade in terms of importance to the team. Throughout the season, the rest of the batting has looked aimless with the exception of Dravid's in a test or two. We did not see the flair of 2004 or earlier times in a significant amount in any innings played by Tendulkar, Laxman and Ganguly. In fact, except for Sehwag in general and Dravid mainly at Calcutta, most of the others have just done the supporting role for most of the season, rather than grabbing the initiative in cruch situations. This is in complete contrast with how we played in 2004.
It's good to get a little perspective here while we criticize - it's not as if we have lost a series to Pakistan. They have just squared it. But this was supposed to be a series that would have launched India to No. 2 in test rankings. A 2-0 win in this series would have done that. For us to claim that ranking there had to be some glimpses of what Australia comes up with all the time. There was hardly any of those to see. In general this is how far we could go - always in the last 20-25 years of test cricket I have followed - one or two series of exceptional performance and then falling back to the normal levels. But this time it was supposed to be different because it has been building up nicely since Wright and Ganguly took over. To some extent I still think the team can bounce back from here in further series but that will have to be seen. But if this is the level we are going maintain, we don't deserve the No. 2: there are teams playing better cricket.
Right from the Chennai test against Australia, through the series against RSA we observed that once Sehwag got out, the rest of the batting lost its momentum. Each member of the main quartet has played initiative grabbing knocks before and seemed completely out of their natural touch this season. Just in this seasons we have lost a chance to win at least four tests after Sehwag made a big score - Chennai against Australia because we couldn't get them out quickly in second innings, Kanpur against RSA because the rest of the batting seemed clueless, and against Pakistan in Mohali and now in Bangalore. Here's an article about Sehwag on Rediff that is pertinent to this discussion.
So should Ganguly lose his captaincy and place with this? That sentiment is expected to gain momentum with this and especially with his own batting failure. Wright and Ganguly have taken India from nowhere to so close to the top. May be they were good only thus far or may be the team is good only up to this level. If Ganguly is sacked (for drawing a home series, not losing it!), the burden of captaincy will fall on Dravid. That might impact his batting and that we can not afford. Sachin will not be interested and I hope they don't jump to Sehwag. Laxman or Kumble are other options, but one is out of form and the other is not always there in the team. Moreover, to be fair with Ganguly you should let him play as a mere batsman to see whether it's the batsman's failure or the captain's limited success weighing on the batsman, as it did with Tendulkar. So Kaif or Yuvraj may have to wait a little more.
What does this mean for the one-days? In 1999, after losing to Pak in Calcutta our people developed some sort of "can't beat them" mental block and it showed in the subsequent one-day performances. Hopefully this time with Sehwah, Yuvraj and Kaif that will not repeat. This team came back well even after Mohali's setback and they are likely to do so again this time. The only point that goes against them is the Pak ODI team looks better on paper than our team at least on current form. We will need to wait about a week to find out whether the team loses it from here or comes back with a bang. Recently against Pakistan they have played very aggressively - even Tendulkar (I had never thought I would have to say this) - and if he also sheds his self-imposed shackles, it will be worth forgetting this test series and checking scores again on Friday night.