Kolkata: Win the toss, bat first, post a massive innings and force the opponents to save the Test. For India in India, there hasn’t been a simpler winning philosophy. So, while Rohit Sharma can’t be faulted for ignoring the overhead conditions in Bengaluru in pursuit of this approach, his batters’ ability to back up the strategy hasn’t been as inspiring as it once used to be. Which is why it can’t be a coincidence that all four Test defeats at home since 2020 have come on the back of batting shortcomings in India’s first innings.

After getting dismissed for 46 in the first innings, Bengaluru has been a most humbling loss. But shades of this meltdown were also visible in the third Test against Australia in Indore, where—like in Bengaluru—India elected to bat but got shot out for 109 in the first innings. Australia fared slightly better to post 197 in the second innings, to which India could only reply with 163 as the entire match barely crossed lunch on the third day. Safe to say, India had lost that game in the first hour — they were 45/5 by drinks in the first session — itself, just like in Bengaluru.

It’s becoming a trend considering India have now lost three home series openers in three years — to New Zealand after England in 2021 and 2024. Even Bangladesh managed to run India close in Chennai last month, reducing them to 144/6 in the first innings before Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin bailed them out. Granted even the best batting units can have a bad day, but so frequent have been India’s first-innings setbacks that it’s snowballing into a worrying factor.

And that is a marked departure from the past because batting at home never used to be a headache for India. Barring the first hour, fast bowlers don’t get much assistance on Indian pitches. Most tracks are spinner-friendly, and all of them tend to get more difficult to bat on with time, so batting first is sort of a no-brainer.

But since 2020, India’s batters aren’t exploiting home advantage as they used to earlier. The overall numbers are conclusive too. Between 2015 and 2019, India used to average 48.57 runs per wicket at home in the first innings. That has slipped to 32.62 since 2020. From 53.93 to 36.58, India’s second innings average too has taken a beating. And since most Tests in India are decided by first innings leads, we are having closer finishes than usual.

A major factor behind this dip in numbers is the slump in form of the batters during this phase. Between 2015-19, there were 21 individual hundreds scored at home. That number has gone down to eight since 2020. From 10 hundreds and an average of 77.11, Virat Kohli’s average has slid to 34.31 with just one hundred. No better is Sharma’s average, slipping from 74.07 to 39.1 even though he has four hundreds in both the phases. All these factors have had a cascading effect on India’s average first innings numbers as well — down from nine 400-plus scores in 2015-19 to only two since 2020.

With overseas spinners doing better than before, batting has become more challenging in all four innings. Add to this the urgency to play more risky shots — a strategy Sharma has passionately defended — and India’s waning first-innings returns isn’t surprising. Sharma, at least, wasn’t regretting choosing to bat at Bengaluru.

“We want to play well. We want to challenge ourselves,” Sharma had said after the first day. “This time around, it didn’t come off, the challenges that were thrown at us. We didn’t respond well, and we found ourselves in a situation where we got bowled out for 46 runs. As a captain, it definitely hurts to see that number, but in 365 days you’ll make two or three bad calls. That’s okay.”

How the average Indian pitch has changed character during this time is a topic of hot debate but there’s no denying that featherbeds are now well and truly a thing of the past. Yet, there have been situations where India haven’t cashed in on great starts. Once the conditions had become more favourable in Bengaluru, the onus was on India to bat as long as possible in the second innings but they failed to cross 500 despite Rishabh Pant and Sarfaraz Khan’s stirring riposte.

Something similar happened at the Hyderabad Test earlier this year where not one India batter converted a hundred as they finished with 436 despite dismissing England for 246 in the first innings. Turned out, not killing the game in the first innings cost India as they were shot out for 202 chasing 231.

Equally frustrating was Chennai in 2021 when India fell 241 runs short of England’s first innings score of 578, ultimately losing that Test by 227 runs. The only reason India haven’t lost more often is because the overseas batters have found the Indian pitches and SG ball trickier with Ashwin and Jadeja constantly breathing down on them. But there is no doubt India’s home invincibility has lost some sheen in the light of their batting downturn.

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