India's resolve bordering on stubbornness to opt for designer turning tracks for bilateral Test series at home has turned the tables on itself; not once, but twice ! Last Tuesday, South Africa completed a 2-0 rout of India in the short Test series for the Freedom Trophy. India was clearly broken in spirit after Temba Bavuma's band of energetic and skilful cricketers made short work of India in the first Test that ended at the Eden Gardens, Kolkata in two and half days or eight sessions.

The home team- in the absence of Shubman Gill - captained by Rishabh Pant in the second Test was humbled at the new Test venue at Barsapara, Guwahati, the match lasting for close to fourteen sessions of two hours each. The writing on the wall was clear though on the fourth day when South Africa set a tall order of 549 for India to win.

India just caved in for a mere 140 - its second lowest score in four completed innings. The home team was not allowed to make more than 189 and 93 at the Eden Gardens and 201 in the first innings at Barsapara. The first Test was a low scoring one with South Africa itself not making more than 159 and 153, but it showed to the world, and to its rival that its spinners - in particular off-spinner Simon Harmer - was superior on all counts - skill, tactics and temperament.

To sum up, it can be said that India's response was meek and mild and apart from the bold and the brave Ravindra Jadeja, the rest did not possess the wherewithal to baulk Harmer and the supports cast in left-arm spinner in Keshav Maharaj. Being skittled out for 93 and 140 reflects the Indian batting department's inexperience playing on square turners.

The team was packed with batter- allrounders, but none could show the competency as shown by South Africa's Bavuma in the first Test, and virtually the entire South African team in the second Test, most notably Tristan Stubbs, Tony de Zorzi and Senuran Muthusamy. That Marco Jansen used his long limbs to batter the Indian bowlers to make 93 in the first innings at Barsapara was a matter of the right hander counter attacking and neutralising the home team's tactics.

What transpired in two weeks in the East and North East part of India was, in the least to say, sensational and shocking - in the context of South Africa displaying its spin talent in full preparedness to hoodwink the Indian batters, supposed to have all answers against the turning ball and uneven bounce. Only two batters, Yashasvi Jaiswal in the first innings of the second Test and Jadeja in the second innings made determined efforts to score half centuries. But the team that went down at the Eden looked truly down and out.

Exactly a year ago, the Rohit Sharma led team ordered for under- prepared pitches to afford turn and doubtful bounce to its spinners in the series against New Zealand and faced the music of having to deal with quality left-arm spinners like Mitchell Santner and Ajaz Patel and lost the series 3-0 and went out of reckoning for the ICC World Test Championship final. Patel in fact replaced the injured Santner ( 7 and 6 wickets in Pune) in the third and final Test in Mumbai and took 5 and 6 wickets at the Wankhede to take his tally to 25 in two Test he has played at the red-soil base venue.

Here again it was a matter of the strategy to play on under-prepared pitches that came home to roost on the home team. Shot out for 46 in the first innings by the New Zealand seam attack in Bengaluru, India went for the extreme in Pune and Mumbai and paid a heavy price. India made 462 on a settled pitch in the second innings in Bengaluru and the idea ought to have been to play the second and third Tests on a sporting pitch because it would have enabled the home team to prepare for the five -Test series in Australia.

India has now suffered two white wash results against New Zealand and South Africa. Australia and England came to India with specific plans to outwit the home team; they did not succeed, but competed with all energy and tactics and won a Test match at Indore and Hyderabad.

An important event in the series against Australia and England was that the spinners of the two sides taking bagful of wickets - Australia 45 (Nathan Lyon 22, Todd Murphy 14, both off-spinners and Matthew Kuhnemann, left-arm spinner, 9) and England 60 (Shoaib Bashir 17, Joe Root 8, both off-spinners, Tom Hartley 22, left arm spinner, Rehan Ahmed 11, leg spinner, Jack Leach 2, left arm spinner).

The South African left-arm spinner Keshav Maharaj was not very successful, but he sent down 52.5 overs to take six wickets at 29.83 while Harmer's 17 scalps at 8.94 made the home team batters weak in their knees.

The question that has to be asked is "are the Indian batters accustomed to play spinners on biased pitches" - the answer is an emphatic no. Generally flat tracks have been the order of the day in the domestic multi- day tournaments and the batters, once in, find it comfortable to play shots off their front foot. Except for Jadeja who has been raised on dry and coarser surfaces at the Madhavrao Scindia Stadium and the Khanderi venue at Rajkot, others have been raised on featherbeds.

In the second Test at Barsapara, it was left- arm seamer Marco Jansen who split open the Indian batting, but after Harmer had tricked Jaiswal and Sai Sudharsan and subsequently Washington Sundar - who made 48.

India is not scheduled to play a home Test in 2026 - it will play two in Sri Lanka and New Zealand- before a five -Test series against Australia in early 2027. But the pitch prepared for the first Test against South Africa has already done the damage and no one can blame the association or the Eden curator for the humiliating defeat there. The head coach Gautam Gambhir said that it was the kind of pitch India was looking for and it got it.

As of now, India is placed fifth in the ICC WTC table and the chances of reaching the final looks difficult . Sri Lanka will roll out turning tracks and New Zealand will have pitches on which its seamers will thrive.

In a way India was unfortunate that Gill - after facing three balls - at the Eden was ruled out of the series because of a neck related injury - and South Africa won the toss in both Tests. But at the end of it all, what was starkly evident was the Indian batters' inability to ward off quality spinners, mainly Harmer.

Indian cricket has taken a hit, a big hit with the 2-0 white wash. The BCCI and the Indian team's think tank will have to do a lot of soul searching now on the pitch aspect for the series against Australia which starts in January 2027.