What now for India after humiliating home defeat to South Africa?

India’s Test team finds itself stuck in a prolonged slump, its ambitions of reaching the 2027 ICC World Test Championship final increasingly distant after a second crushing home series defeat in just over a year. A side in transition, grappling with the fading era of Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Ravichandran Ashwin, has struggled for direction, consistency and selection clarity.

India’s latest setback — a two-and-a-half-day defeat to South Africa at Eden Gardens, followed by a fifth-day loss on a sporting pitch in Guwahati — has amplified concerns about a team once considered invincible at home. Injuries, muddled selections, declining spin play, dropped catches and rapid-format transitions have combined to expose glaring vulnerabilities. Seven left-handers picked in the Kolkata Test, Shubman Gill’s neck spasm, and an overdependence on allrounders further complicated matters.

The numbers are stark. Under head coach Gautam Gambhir, India have lost five home Tests — a dramatic contrast to the eras of Ravi Shastri and Rahul Dravid, whose teams reached successive WTC finals in 2021 and 2023. When Gambhir took charge in 2024, India topped the WTC standings with a healthy 68.52% points percentage and were favourites to reach a third straight final. They needed seven wins from their remaining ten matches. Instead, a historic 3-0 defeat at home to New Zealand – the visitors’ greatest overseas Test triumph – derailed the campaign.

India briefly revived hopes with a stirring win in Perth to take a 1-0 lead in Australia, but the series unravelled into a 3-1 loss. Gambhir’s first ten Tests as head coach of India had resulted in three wins, six losses and one draw. 

More than nine months later, India resumed playing Test cricket when eight-ranked West Indies arrived for two matches. Gill, who oversaw a commendable 2-2 drawl in England on flat tracks, told reporters in a press conference that the team wanted to move away from sharply spinning pitches to more even surfaces that would allow Test matches to go to days four and five, in the process making India a better team. 

India won inside three days in Ahmedabad, but then were made to wait until day five in New Delhi to make it 2-0. Did West Indies’ resistance in that second Test, played on a flat track, spook India? 

Contradictions followed. After Gill publicly advocated for more balanced pitches, India reportedly requested a rank turner for the first Test against South Africa in Kolkata. The plan backfired, with the visitors outplaying India in all departments.

After the Eden Gardens defeat, Gambhir defended a raging turner and put the blame on the batting. After the Guwahati loss, he questioned peoples’ memories and gave himself credit for India’s “results in England” and the Champions Trophy and T20 Asia Cup title runs. When a coach is forced to defend himself after such a humiliating defeat at home and replies in that manner, you know matters are not alright. 

Gambhir inherited a very experienced and settled ODI team from his predecessor, Dravid, and the current T20I side, running on the success of the 2024 T20 World Cup, can pretty much run on autopilot. The big concern is the Test team. 

With no Test cricket until June 2026, India have time – but also mounting questions. Replacements for Ashwin and Cheteshwar Pujara have not emerged, and the team’s long-standing struggles against spin on turning tracks persist. Critics argue that Test selection must shift back to domestic performers from Ranji Trophy, Duleep Trophy and India A fixtures, rather than relying on white-ball success.

The upcoming cycles pose further challenges: Afghanistan at home in 2026, followed by Sri Lanka and New Zealand away. More importantly, touring teams now arrive in India believing they can win. New Zealand in 2024  and South Africa in 2025 have provided a template: bring three spinners, pick the best two, and India are no longer unbeatable.

India’s Test dominance at home – once a given – is now firmly in question. The transition phase is proving longer, more complicated, and far more costly than anyone anticipated.