Team India’s repeat mistakes in the Kolkata Test show they didn’t learn from the 2024 home series loss to New Zealand.
Team India suffered yet another home Test defeat, this time against South Africa at Eden Gardens, Kolkata, in the first of a two-match Test series. This defeat comes just over a year after India was humbled 0-3 by New Zealand.
The Indian team management and their head coach, Gautam Gambhir, don’t seem to have learnt a lesson, even after a horror show against New Zealand, where India endured a Test series defeat at home in a long time. And now again at Kolkata, history repeated itself as India received a reality check, this time at the hands of South Africa.
So what went wrong for India in this Test?
To discuss that, we will have to take a statistical route. First, let us take the top seven batters from India and look at their records in the home series against New Zealand and South Africa.
Runs scored by Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Gill, Sundar, Pant, Jadeja, and Jurel vs SA and NZ
| Innings | Runs vs spinners | Outs | Average |
| 7 | 759 | 27 | 28.1 |
The above numbers include the runs scored by Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill, Washington Sundar, Rishabh Pant, Ravindra Jadeja, and Dhruv Jurel against the spinners of South Africa and New Zealand.
However, in the same timeline (since 2024), when the surfaces in the home Test matches offered less assistance to the spinners, i.e., the series against England, Bangladesh, and West Indies, the performances of these batters were quite contrasting. It is to be noted that India won each of the three Test series convincingly.
| Innings | Runs vs spinners | Outs | Average |
| 16 | 2323 | 36 | 64.50 |
Read More: IND vs SA 2025-26, 1st Test: Spin it to ‘bin’ it – India lose yet another home Test on a turner
Comparison between India and New Zealand spinners
| Team | Spinners used | Innings between them | Wickets | Average |
| New Zealand | 4 | 13 | 37 | 22.45 |
| India | 4 | 18 | 44 | 24.25 |
The above stats show how the opposition spinners from New Zealand outperformed the experienced Indian spinners. The likes of Ajaz Patel and Mitchell Santner, along with an unlikely bowling hero, Glenn Phillips, turned the tide against India batters.
A similar thing happened for India during their 30-run loss against South Africa in the first Test.
| Team | Number of spinners used | Innings between them | Wickets | Average |
| South Africa | 3 | 5 | 12 | 13.25 |
| India | 4 | 8 | 10 | 18.9 |
The Proteas went in with just two specialist spinners in the Kolkata Test and got the job done. India, on the contrary, asked and prepared a rank turner, going with as many as four spinners, and still got outbowled.
In fact, the fast bowling duo of Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj (combinedly 10/100) out-bowled the India spinners, who had a collective average of 18.9 on a turning track.
From the table above, it shows India’s batters are clearly struggling against the spinners on tracks that offer a great deal of turn. In the series that India lost against New Zealand and now in against South Africa, they meekly surrendered against quality spinners.
The other thing is that the opposition spinners have come well-prepared than the home spinners. While it was Ajaz and Santner for New Zealand, Simon Harmer was the one who did it for the Proteas at Kolkata.
Looks like we haven’t learned our lesson from NZ series loss. The gap between our spinners and opposition spinners reduces on pitches like this. We need to go back to classic Indian pitches, like the ones in 2016-17 season when Virat was captain and Eng and NZ toured. #INDvSA
— Wasim Jaffer (@WasimJaffer14) November 16, 2025
Read More: Irrespective of outcomes, is India’s team combination muddled in Tests?
Does India’s management have any answers?
In the post-match press conference, India’s head coach Gautam Gambhir mentioned that the pitch curator prepared a pitch that they wanted, and that it was a complete failure on the part of the batters.
Yes, the surface was progressively getting tough for the batters, but India’s batsmen should have shown a better application, something which opposition skipper Temba Bavuma showed. Also, the Indian spinners allowed the game to drift, especially towards the end of South Africa’s second essay.
All these things don’t justify the team management’s demand for a rank turner, nor going with four frontline spinners. In short, they don’t have any answers for this horrendous show at Eden Gardens.
Read More: IND vs SA 2025-26, 1st Test, Day 2: South Africa in disarray at 93-7, courtesy Jadeja’s 4-29
