Guwahati, Nov. 27 -- This wasn't a defeat, this was abject surrender. On a fifth day pitch that was worn down but still had runs in it, against a team that didn't feature Kagiso Rabada but were lionhearted. With barely any preparation, leapfrogging from one white-ball series to another, a result everyone feared for... has happened. Outbatted, outbowled, outplanned, pretty much outsmarted by every metric, India can't even tell themselves they didn't see it coming. This defeat has deja vu written all over it, 2000 being the last time India had lost 0-2 to South Africa at home. But as it turned out, there was light at the end of that tunnel within a year. When will another one come, if it comes at all? You might not want to hear it, but this feels like a darker shade of that darkness. At home, throughout the 2010s, India were used to cantering to wins with a handicap. Five batters at home, bonus if Wriddhiman Saha scored, India were always sorted. Now India are summoning bits-and-pieces players who can neither bat or bowl, playing musical chairs with the batting order and basically shooting themselves in both their feet. The result is for everyone to see. Take out the West Indies and Bangladesh tours as well as the Bengaluru Test against New Zealand last year, and India haven't been able to score 300 in an innings at home since Gautam Gambhir took over as coach after the T20 World Cup win. More damning is the way India's collective batting has allowed overseas spinners to thrive in India. Last year, Mitchell Santner took 13 wickets in New Zealand's 3-0 clean sweep. This time, Simon Harmer-an off-spinner who had played 12 Tests in 10 years before this-took 17 of the 38 wickets to fall at an average of 8.94, to trigger India's implosion. The absence of Rabada should have been tweaked into an advantage, but India perhaps didn't account for the six feet eight inches tall Marco Jansen who finished with a tally of 12 wickets at an average of 10.08. To cap it off came a superb catch by Jansen, running back, diving full length to take a one-handed catch of Mohammad Siraj that sealed a record 408-run defeat, India's highest ever in their 93-year Test history. Not since 1959 have India lost five of seven Tests at home in a two-season stretch but mention that to Gambhir and he believes that the 0-3 loss to New Zealand was different from this clean sweep in terms of the personnel involved. "I am sure when you see this batting line-up (vis-a-vis) that batting line-up, that line-up and the experience that that team had (compared) to what this team has is chalk and cheese," said Gambhir after the match. "So comparing everything to New Zealand is probably a wrong narrative. I don't give excuses, I have never done that in the past, I will never do it in the future as well but if you see four or five batters in this top eight have literally played less than 15 Test matches. They will grow, they are learning on the job, they are learning on the field." If learning life lessons on the go is a box these younger players need to tick then maybe they aren't doing a good job in the first place. What does it say of Sai Sudharsan-who rode his luck to survive a few close calls and a dismissal off a no-ball-if he can neither attack nor defend? And then there was Dhruv Jurel who just doesn't move his feet to spinners. First ball, Washington Sundar showed why he is rated higher than any top-order batter right now. Senuran Muthusamy was getting purchase off the pitch, but he came out of the crease to flick it towards mid-wicket. When Jansen was loose, Washington made it a point to flick him over the deep backward square for a four. Ravindra Jadeja was playing positively, even hitting Keshav Maharaj for a six over deep mid-wicket. But it never seemed enough from one end in the first place. Sudharsan could have built on that scratchy start, but he again threw away his wicket. Jurel probably needs to go back to the drawing board after a miserable outing. Rishabh Pant played like you would expect of him, but wasn't this a day he could have summoned that spirit of the Oval Test in 2021, where he had grinded his way to a 106-ball 50? There was a Pant-like six alright, but he fell to another slow offbreak from Harmer-playing forward-defensive but the ball bounced sharply to take an edge and fly to Aiden Markram at slip. All classical off spinner dismissals, but with India at the receiving end. Ninety-three in the second innings at Eden, 140 here make up irrefutable evidence that India's batting decay goes beyond just the transition. And the severity of this series loss, along with the historical context, makes one wonder if at all India were prepared for this level of interrogative cricket from the world champions. So fresh was the defeat at Eden Gardens that there's also no way India turned up at Guwahati unaware of what might happen in case of another defeat. Yet, there was hardly any resistance, hardly any semblance of a fight. Time will move on quickly, to white ball cricket in three days. But history will always remember this as the day India not only lost another home series in quick succession, but also their hard-earned pride....