5 Reasons why Team India lost the Melbourne Test match versus Australia

Team India, under the leadership of Rohit Sharma are currently taking part in the five-match 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy series versus the Australiana on Australian soil. The fourth Test-Match of this series ended on the 30th of December in Melbourne where the Indian Team suffered an embarrassing 184-runs defeat. 

The win in Melbourne allowed the home side to take a 2-1 lead in the five-match series. Let us tell you that the Men in Blue had been given a target of 340 runs to secure the win, but they got all-out for just 155 runs. Following this defeat, a lot of weaknesses of the Rohit Sharma-led team have been exposed. 

The two teams will now travel to Sydney where they will be squaring off versus each other in the fifth & the final Test-Match of the series. The forthcoming contest will commence from the 3rd of January, 2025 at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG).

If the Men in Blue want to save the series, then they have to win the Sydney Test-Match by any means possible and they have to find solutions to their five problems which got exposed in Melbourne. Let's take a look at five reasons why the Indian Team lost the Melbourne Test-Match. 

Five Reasons why Team India lost the Melbourne Boxing-Day Test-Match versus Australia

5. The flop performance of the Top order

If we exclude the Perth Test-Match, then the performance of the top order of the Indian Team has not been good in the other three tests. They have failed to create a big partnership for the Men in Blue. The opening duo of KL Rahul & Yashasvi Jaiswal got involved in a magnificent 201 run partnership for the first wicket. 

But since that match, the Indian Team in every other contest of the BGT Series have struggled to create big partnerships for the first and second wickets. In this case, the team management of Team India needs to make the players prepare in a special manner otherwise their chances of winning in Sydney will reduce.

4. Poor fielding display, many catches got dropped

In the Melbourne Boxing-Day Test-Match, the Indian team showcased a lackluster fielding performance, where they dropped four catches in the 2nd inning of the contest and these dropped catches proved to be very costly. Yashasvi Jaiswal alone dropped three catches while the other one was dropped by Siraj. If Rohit Sharma & CO want to finish out on top in the Sydney Test-Match, then they have to show improvisations in the fielding.

3. Poor performance with the bat of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma

The below par performance of the duo of Virat Kohli and Captain Rohit Sharma with the bat have proven to be a major reason behind Team India's lackluster performance in the ongoing BGT 2024-25 series. Opening batter Yashasvi Jaiswal is currently the highest run getter for the Men in Blue in the ongoing BGT series having amassed 359 runs in four contests. 

Kohli is at the fourth position in the list of Team India's highest run getters, having scored 167 runs in seven innings. He scored an incredible century in the Perth test but besides that, he hasn't done much and his bat has stayed silent in the other three matches. 

Talking about Rohit Sharma, his condition is even more worse in terms of batting performance. The 37-year-old has hit the Australian bowlers for just 31 runs in five innings in three BGT tests. He is currently averaging just 6.20, which is considered as miserable when you take into consideration the standards which the skipper has set for himself. 

The Indian fast bowlers have scored more runs than the skipper, which makes it even more embarrassing for the Indian skipper. Seamer Akash Deep has scored 38 runs in three innings in the ongoing BGT series. If the two time WTC runners-up want to have any chances of winning in Sydney, then both Kohli and Rohit will have to start firing with the bat. 

2. Weak Captaincy of Rohit Sharma

The Men in Blue have won just a single contest in the ongoing series, where they secured a dominant victory in Perth under the leadership of Jasprit Bumrah. The seamer led the team in the absence of Rohit as he missed the opening test due to being on a paternity-leave. 

However, ever since he returned to lead the team in Adelaide, things started to go all wrong for India. The team wasn't able to win a single match and now they are on the verge of losing the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series. 

Somewhere down the line, the leadership of Rohit Sharma has proven to be weak. An example of this can be seen in the Melbourne Boxing-Day Test-Match where in the 2nd inning, the Indian bowlers had dismissed six Australian batters for a mere score of 91 runs and the situation was looking really good for the team. 

However, after this Rohit looked very relax and took things lightly that the last four wickets fell after the hosts had reached the score of 234 runs. Post the fall of six wickets, the Indian skipper was supposed to implement a tight fielding setup in order to create pressure on the lower order of the Aussies. 

Instead, he implemented a spread out fielding setup which allowed the lower middle order Australian batters to take easy doubles and singles and they got involved in big partnerships which helped their team to get in a strong position.The duo of skipper Pat Cummins and Marnus Labuschagne stiched a 57 run partnership for the 7th wicket and tailenders Scott Boland & Nathan Lyon got involved in a partnership of 61 runs for the final wicket which caused issues for the Indian team. 

The 37-year-old will have to showcase strong captaincy in the Sydney Test-Match if the Men in Blue want to save the BGT series.

1. Complete dependency on Jasprit Bumrah

If we look at it closely, Team India has been heavily dependent on vice-captain Jasprit Bumrah in the entire BGT 2024-25 series. This dependency has been the highest in the Melbourne Boxing-Day Test-Match. You can guess this from the fact that the 29-year-old is the highest wicket taker in the current series as he has dismissed batters 30 times in four encounters. 

Australian skipper Pat Cummins is the 2nd highest wicket getter of the series, with 20 scalps next to his name. While in terms of Indian bowlers, Siraj has dismissed 16 Australian batters, Akash Deep has five scalps and Harshit Rana has taken just four wickets in two matches and Jadeja has also taken the same number of scalps too. 

In this way, these four bowlers have dismissed a combined number of 29 batters in comparison to the 30 scalps of Bumrah. These stats show how dependent Team India has been on Bumrah alone and the other bowlers have to start taking the initiative if they want to help the Rohit Sharma-led retain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

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