A chief reason why India will not emulate anywhere near what Aus of 99-07 did is this lack of killer instinct when it comes to batting. Under Kohli, the bowling has been revolutionised. But batting largely continues to be a Buddies Club.
After the BG trophy, people were taking up the bench strength of the country. Well not disputing that, but thst bench strength is useless when the first choice players get ridiculously long ropes and never put under the pump. Rahane has had a very long rope and I don't see him getting challenged abytime soon, particularly given Kohli's reluctance to be seen as someone who took out potential captaincy rival. Well the truth is Rahane isn't first choice test material any more. He was an.emabrassment playing spinners in these conditions, and was made to look like a dimwit by Ashwin.
Look how easily Sundar, who looked supremely comfortable against both spin and pace in the couple of tests he got to play thus far, has been jettisoned because he couldn't bowl. This despite having outscored Rahane comfortably in the last two tests they played together. Just need to start thinking a but outside the box. Sundar has trained to be a batsman from his childhood and has played half of his FC matches as an opening batsman. He is only 21 years of age and its not as its too late to consider him as a top order batsman. And forget the records watching him perform against the likes of Cummins, Hazelwood, Starc, Anderson, Archer etc especially with India under the pump, its quite obvious the lad can bat. His bowling may be considered as an added advantage at worst or really useful on the kind of pitch we saw in this test. Not to mention the left hand advantage he brings to the mix.
But the powers be are so Conservative they can't even imagine giving this a shot. It took a moment of genius and unorthodox thinking that resulted in India finding its best ever opener after Gavaskar, Sehwag.
Ultimately, India dropped a guy who averages 56 in tests and retained a guy who averages a grand 37 in India, one who can't play spin to save his life and is already nearly 33.
Ridiculous.