India's fortress falters: Inside their home slump

India's 0-2 whitewash at the hands of South Africa has triggered intense scrutiny from fans, pundits, and former players. The defeat comes on the heels of a 0-3 drubbing at home by New Zealand last year and a 1-3 collapse Down Under that cost India a spot in the World Test Championship final for the first time.

For a team that once strung together an unprecedented 18 consecutive home series wins, the sudden slide into repeated home failures has raised deep questions about selections, tactics, coaching philosophy, and India's readiness against increasingly well-prepared touring sides.

Putting the decline in perspective

India have now lost five of their last seven home Tests, with only a 2-0 win over an injury raven West Indies breaking the sequence. The last time India endured a similar stretch - losing five Tests in a seven-match home span - was in the late 1950s. Back then, a 0-3 defeat to West Indies in 1958-59 was flanked by Test losses to Australia in 1956-57 and again in 1959-60.

India's poor run at home in late 1950s

India have also lost rubbers in back-to-back home seasons for the first time since the mid-1980s, when an all-time great West Indies team vying for revenge for the World Cup defeat at Lord's, crushed them 0-3 in 1983/84, before England scripted a come-from-behind 2-1 victory in 1984/85.

The two recent whitewashes sting particularly sharply because India had previously suffered this indignity only once at home - against South Africa in 2000. The low point came in Guwahati, where India suffered their first-ever defeat by a margin exceeding 400 runs, a straw that eventually broke the camel's back.

Selection volatility under Gambhir

In the 19 Tests India have played under Gautam Gambhir since September 2024, the team has looked anything but a settled Test side. 24 players have been used in this period, and India have managed to field an unchanged XI in consecutive Tests just twice - in the series against low ranked Bangladesh and West Indies at home.

Across these 19 Tests, the management has made a staggering 45 changes to the playing XI. Part of this instability stems from injuries and retirements, but Gambhir's tenure has been marked by a preference to multi-skilled cricketers over specialists.

The bias toward players who can dabble in multiple formats or roles has shaped most of the debuts in the period overseen by Gambhir. Harshit Rana, picked for his attributes, was jettisoned after two Tests and hasn't been sighted in whites since. Nitish Reddy, a seam-bowling all-rounder with a modest domestic track record, was fast-tracked into the side for his rare skillset but ended up bowling fewer than nine overs per Test, effectively burdening the frontline quicks. That extra workload fed directly into Jasprit Bumrah's breakdown at the end of the Australia tour, rationing his involvement in England later in the year.

If selection churn wasn't enough, India under Gambhir have also stumbled into a long-term structural problem for the No.3 vacancy - a slot that was safeguarded by Rahul Dravid and then Cheteshwar Pujara for the best part of 25 years. Gambhir entrusted the role to Sai Sudharsan, a player with a sub-40 first-class average at the time of his debut in England, in July. India haven't picked such a specialist batter, who doesn't offer anything in other discipline, for a Test debut since Navjot Sidhu in 1983/84. Sudharsan ended his debut year averaging 27.45 from 11 innings with just two fifties while in contrast, the rest of India's top seven averaged 54 with 14 hundreds in the six Tests he featured in.

Out-spun and out-bounced: South Africa Expose India in their backyard

The two most recent series wins against South Africa at home underlined India's dominance on both pace and spin fronts during their 18-series winning run between 2013 and 2024. In 2015, it was the Ashwin-Jadeja axis that dismantled South Africa. In 2019, it was the triple-threat of Ishant Sharma, Mohammed Shami, and Umesh Yadavthat broke their back.

In the recently concluded series, South Africa out-bowled India in India, something that has virtually never happened in India's Test history. Their seamers averaged an absurd 15.53, nearly half of India's 26.50. Their spinners were even more dominant, operating at 15.48, while India's more experienced and varied spin attack languished at 30.57. The one domain where India once dictated terms without compromise has now become an arena where visiting teams are not just surviving, they are thriving.

Bowlers in India - South Africa series (2025)

Pace vs spin: India vs visitors in series defeats at home

Visiting bowlers achieve parity

The backbone of a team winning is their ability to pick 20 opposition wickets and this was something India were able to achieve across a variety of home conditions - the flatter wickets against England in 2016, the rank turners against the same opponent in 2021, or slightly more seam friendly wickets against South Africa in 2019. The visiting teams have now arrived in India better prepared and have been able to do the same to India what India did to them in the past.

Mitchell Santner was making his third Test tour to India last year, in addition to the experience honed through various white-ball assignments and IPL stints showed his wherewithal to vary the pace to get the best out of the track in Punelast year. The Indian spin trio largely operated only in the higher speed ranges that eventually resulted in lower returns. In the following Test on a turner at Wankhede, Ajaz Patel matched the efforts of Ravindra Jadeja, picking his second ten-wicket haul at the venue in as many games to help New Zealand to a narrow win.

Simon Harmer returned to India ten years later with 750+ extra first-class wickets to his kitty, and the experience of bowling in varied conditions. He out-bowled India's spin attack on a black soil turner in Kolkata last week and repeated the feat on a vastly different red soil wicket in Guwahati.

It should be noted both New Zealand last year and South Africa now have come to India more attuned to the expected conditions, on the back of another Test series in the sub-continent, in Sri Lanka and in Pakistan respectively.

Spinners in India - last 10 years

In Bengaluru last year, India suffered the ignominy of getting dismissed for their lowest total at home and it was the seamers that did the damage in that game accounting for 17 wickets. Matt Henry and Will O'Rourke used the seam and bounce to perfection, on a Chinnaswamy wicket that was under covers for three days. In this series, Marco Jansen used the uneven bounce in Kolkata to get the better of India's openers while in Guwahati his tall release helped him to extract the natural steep bounce on a red soil wicket. On the final day of the Test, he was seen exploiting the reverse swing on offer. It highlighted how adept overseas bowlers are currently, while bowling on Indian wickets, often using their physical attributes to go one step further.

Indian batters' spin game

While the visiting spinners have narrowed the gap to their Indian counterparts, the same can be said about how well their batters come in tackling the home spinners. The series against South Africa was only the third time in a multi-Test series at home where an India batter failed to reach the three figures. The toss has played a part - India lost the toss in each of the four defeats where spinners called the shots in the last two seasons - giving the visitors the advantage of batting on better batting conditions, albeit only for short windows.

When balls turn square, the best option to put bowlers off their god lengths is to sweepand this has been a key arsenal for the touring teams. In each of the four home rubbers since last year, the visiting sides has deployed sweep shots and its variants more often than the home team and have scored more runs off the shot. Indian batters, on the other hand, largely play spin off the crease with those who sweeps being an exception rather than the norm. India too are probably now realizing the importance of the shot in their arsenal, highlighted by the approach of Jadeja. He swept 10.2% of all balls from spin in the four Tests in the 2025/26 season, a massive jump 1.5% against spin in home Tests up until the end of 2024/25 season.

The Gautam Gambhir era: a team without identity

The numbers say it all. In nine home Tests under Gambhir, India have won four and lost five. No Indian coach ever has overseen two home series defeats, let alone back-to-back whitewashes. For a team that once turned home Test cricket into an art form, the past year has been chaotic, directionless, and alarmingly unsure of itself. Selection churn, confused role definitions, muddled tactical calls, and an overreliance on multi-format players have created a team that's unsure what it stands for.

India's next home WTC series may not arrive until early 2027, a gap that should offer breathing room. Instead, it feels like a clock ticking down. Because what this past year has revealed is not just poor results - it's the loss of something deeper. A clear, confident identity at home, the one thing India could always rely on.

India coaches at home since 2000/01 season