India After the Big Three

AS AN EVENT, IT is most unprecedented for a great Test side to lose its leading run-scorer among active batsmen, leading wicket-taker among active bowl­ers and their captain all at the same time, which is precisely what has happened to Indian cricket in 2025. Even though the exits occurred in a staggered sort of way, the Border-Gavaskar Trophy of 2024-25 will forever be remembered as the last Test series in which Virat Kohli, Ravichandran Ashwin and Rohit Sharma played red-ball cricket for India, hence making the day-night game in Adelaide the final time these three legends— men who shaped a generation—featured together.

Not picked for the following Test in Brisbane, Ashwin hung up his boots with 537 Test wickets—second best for In­dia after Anil Kumble's figure of 619—which in turn places Ravindra Jadeja, with 323 Test scalps, as India's current leading wicket-taker. Captain Rohit dropped himself for the final Test of that series in Sydney and retired by early May, which made Melbourne his final Test for the country. While Kohli called it a day a few days after Rohit, ending his tally at 9,230 runs, fourth on India's list after Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Sunil Gavaskar, making the Sydney game his last appearance in India's whites. Which once again, incredibly, makes Jadeja India's leading run-scorer (with 3,370 runs) among the players who regu­larly still play Test cricket or were on the fateful tour of Australia.

None of these calls were expected and the suddenness of it has ensured that there simply isn't a reference point in history for the Indian Test set-up to lean on to rebuild and move forward. Yes, multiple legends from world-beating teams did retire in the same series, like when Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Damien Martyn all called it quits during the 2006-07 Ashes in Aus­tralia. But, those retirements were announced well in advance and the likes of Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke were still very much around to pick up the pieces and take the team forward.

While these Indian retirements might, on the face of it, re­semble Kumble and Sourav Ganguly bowing out unexpectedly in the same series, against Australia at home in late 2008, or even seem like when Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman did the same after the tour Down Under in 2011-12, they simply cannot be compared, for that generation still had a perfect mix of experi­ence and youth left in the team to paper over these major losses of individual personnel. The fact that Jadeja, an all-rounder who bats in the lower middle-order, is currently India's top run-getter and wicket-taker in Test cricket, should inform you that the loss of Kohli, Rohit and Ashwin has ripped the spine of experience out of Indian cricket in one fell swoop.

Why they departed on the heels of each other and so suddenly has continued to remain a matter of speculation. Some claim that there's no reason to look beyond their dipping form and mount­ing losses, while other theories suggest that the Board of Con­trol for Cricket in India's (BCCI) new rule that disallows family members to travel with the cricketers on Test tours, most of which are long, holds the key. But the fact remains that their collective exits have left an unforeseen void on the country's Test set-up, one that the think tank, led by coach Gautam Gambhir, will have to fill before the long and arduous five-Test tour of Eng­land, the team's next assignment.

While it might seem like an insur­mountable challenge on paper, especially given the Test tour begins next month, here's the thing about Indian cricket in 2025—the talent runs deep and wide, far wider than the pool of the country's first-class cricketers, as was once the case. Be it by force and not design, the void will ensure that India's Test team will bear a younger, fresher look to it than it ever did, therefore the possibilities of what it could shape up to be after the transition are endless. The lack of these decorated se­niors also ensures that Gautam Gambhir is now the undisputed alpha figure of the team, and like it or not, he can now mould the squad to his satisfaction, without any resistance.

The first order of business for Gambhir is of course to fill in the gaps, beginning with choosing a new on-field leader. Jasprit Bumrah, who led in Rohit's absence in Australia, would've, in an ideal world, been the go-to choice—a no-brainer, really, given his influence on strategies and the game at large. But reports suggest that because he is prone to injury (Bumrah has played only 45 Tests since he made his debut in January 2018), the se­lectors are looking elsewhere, seemingly in Shubman Gill's direction. While Gill may be far less experienced than KL Rahul (32 Tests to 58), who is also said to be in the running to take over as captain, the 25-year-old from Punjab is widely seen as a future leader of Indian cricket, having already pinned down the critical number 3 position for himself.

Rahul, the ultimate team-man, has long not had a fixed posi­tion for himself, doing whatever he is asked from opening the innings to batting just above the wicketkeeper, Rishabh Pant. De­spite largely opening the innings for India on the Australia tour, including in the match for which Rohit dropped himself, expect the 33-year-old from Karnataka to occupy the number 4 position vacated by Kohli. While this may still not solve the hole at the very top of the order left behind by Rohit, the smart money is on Sai Sudharsan to face the new ball alongside Yashasvi Jaiswal, the latter already India's most dependable top order batsman by 23.

On the domestic level, Sudharsan is already an all-format opener for Tamil Nadu. But his form for Gujarat Ti­tans and new-found penchant for conjur­ing big runs in the ongoing IPL makes the 23-year-old, with just two international ap­pearances in ODIs under his belt thus far, a clear frontrunner for receiving his maiden call-up into the Test squad, and perhaps even the eleven for the opening Test match of the upcoming tour in Leeds in June. So, if this indeed is India's new top-order, Jaiswal, Sudharsan, Gill and Rahul, then Nitish Kumar Reddy picks himself to add heft to the middle-order after having impressed as the breakout star in Austra­lia; not just with his hundred in Melbourne, but also by top-scoring from lower down the batting order on several occasions.

Reddy's eventual batting position might just remain fluid, in­terchangeable with those of wicketkeeper Pant's and all-rounder Jadeja's too, depending on the situation of the team. At 36, Jadeja is not just the oldest member of the Test side now, but also undoubt­edly their primary spinner—long having had to fight for his place in overseas Test matches with Ashwin. Home or abroad, the man from Jamnagar will be the first name on the team-sheet, but the question still remains as to who will replace Ashwin. In Washington Sundar, India has a like-for-like call-up, an off-spinner from Tamil Nadu who can hold his own with the bat. But there is Kuldeep Yadav too, the Chinaman bowler who was often been the third wheel to Ashwin and Jadeja, as his record of 13 Test appearances will attest to.

But the man who will be most scrutinised over the next few months is coach Gambhir himself. Always a divisive figure since his playing days, the 43-year-old from Delhi is known to split opinion, be it in the dressing room or on the field. His very visible spats with Kohli in the IPL—first as a player, then as a coach—had the fans wondering how the two would co-exist once he was named coach of the Indian team. That talking point has ceased to exist, now that Kohli has retired.

Since taking over from Dravid after the T20 World Cup victory in mid-2024, Gambhir has had a whirlwind first-year in charge of Indian cricket, to say the least. Already his short tenure has overseen In­dia losing their first Test series on home soil in over a decade, which ensured that they didn't qualify for their first World Test Championship final since the compe­tition's inception, but then evened the keel with a victory at the Champions Trophy. Then there was the debacle at the Border-Gavaskar Trophy and the sudden retire­ments to boot.

But few men have stepped up to the occasion for Indian cricket like Gambhir. He top-scored in not one but two World Cup finals (the T20 version in 2007 and then at the Wankhede in 2011), yet never did get the recognition he deserved for these fantastical feats. Now, however, he has a blank slate on which he can scribble not only Indian cricket's future, but his own. Perhaps this is how he finally gets his due, as the man who took the sudden retirements of India's finest in his stride and still managed to steer the team to safety.