Kolkata, Nov. 21 -- It used to be ridiculously simple really: Make it count while batting, preferably once, before leaving it to the bowlers to wrap up the game. That's how India had a 22-1 win loss record between 2015 and 2019. Something however has changed so dramatically since the pandemic that India's record since 2020 now reads a baffling 16-7. Putting a finger on the drastically reduced batting averages is the first instinct, but it's also the domino effect of too many decisions going wrong. Never before have India looked so out of place at home. An impulsive conclusion would be to frame this slide as a knee-jerk response to the transition that kicked in with the phasing out of Cheteshwar Pujara after the 2023 World Test Championship final and ended with the retirements of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma before the England tour this year. But even within this period came six out of the seven losses so evidently it wasn't about that. No one was spared the ignominy, especially Kohli who averaged a pedestrian 29.92 in 16 Tests since 2021, with just one hundred. In the five-year period before 2020? An average of 77.11, backed by 10 hundreds and a highest of 254*. It can't be a coincidence that the 254* came in 2019 at Pune against a strong South African attack comprising Kagiso Rabada, Vernon Philander, Anrich Nortje, Senuran Muthuswamy and Keshav Maharaj who bowled a staggering 50 overs in the first innings, getting the wicket of Ajinkya Rahane but returning an economy of 3.92. India batted first, declared on 601/5 before bowling out South Africa for 275 and 189. Mayank Agarwal got a hundred, Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane and Ravindra Jadeja got fifties. What the scoreboard won't tell you though is how the pitch wasn't like in 2017 or 2024. Flat and slow to begin with, spinners coming into play the third day onwards-the Pune pitch was typically as 'Indian' as it could get. It continued to be the theme of that series. In the first Test at Visakhapatnam, the pitch started off slow, flattened out and then took turn later on. In the third Test at Ranchi as well, India piled on 497 before their bowlers took over the reins, fast bowlers taking 10 wickets, spinners nine. Two innings victories, the first Test won by 203 runs, India didn't feel challenged at all, that too on tracks far less docile than the one prepared at Eden Gardens. What changed in between? Key in this chronology of events is the 2021 Test against England where Joe Root scored a double hundred in the first innings score of 578 on a regular Chennai pitch. India lost by 227 runs. In the aftermath of that defeat, India added a black soil top layer on the traditional red soil track so that it could disintegrate faster and help spinners. India got their wish, winning by 317 runs. Ever since that series, India have suffered six more defeats, four of them coming on extreme pitches in Indore (2023), Pune (2024), Wankhede (2024) and Kolkata (2025), all finishing within three days. In the fifth defeat at Bengaluru (2024), heavy rain played a major role in the excessive seam on the first morning that led to India being all out for 46. And in Hyderabad (2024), Ollie Pope's second innings 196 proved to be too good. It was as much the Chennai game as the one in Bengaluru that necessitated this demand for dry pitches where balls may not turn immediately but would definitely stay up and down from the first session. Giving the spinners an edge was the idea, as was the intention of maximising WTC points from home Tests since draws won't fetch much. But inadvertently also brought into the equation were visiting spinners who could get purchase from these pitches in shorter spells. Not only has it hurt the home batting averages but also narrowed the difference between Indian and visiting spinners. Not to forget the inherent distrust that was slowly apparent in how the batting was getting subsidised by allrounders, in how rarely Kuldeep Yadav was given match time, and in how new batters weren't given enough time to settle in. The signalling was mixed, with some back and forth on the selection policy as well. Karun Nair was picked and dropped, Sarfaraz Khan has been sidelined even after scoring that 150 in the Bengaluru Test, Abhimanyu Easwaran not even considered despite sparkling form in red ball cricket. Ranji Trophy experience was given weightage, but only in sound bytes. In the buildup to the Guwahati Test, India are facing issues on multiple fronts, ranging from who will replace Gill if he is announced unfit, to whether there would be a rethink on how many bowlers would be put to use. A consistent pitch policy would have at least nullified the second problem. A while back, tinkering with pitches wasn't policy. There were three reasons behind it-batters could cash in, Indian spinners could maintain their superiority in getting purchase from even the flattest tracks, and fast bowlers like Mohammad Shami and Umesh Yadav could chip in even in the fourth innings by reverse swinging the ball. But by ripping out that page from the playbook of how to host cricket, India have made winning at home harder for themselves....