Does beating India count for anything?

It’s a question many England fans will have asked themselves last summer as their heroes effortlessly slaughtered India. It is a question that will soon be in the thoughts of Australian fans once their side wraps up an inevitable series whitewash.

Michael Clarke emphasises the widening gulf in class between his side and MS Dhoni's India.

MS Dhoni, put to the press to defend his side after another thumping, this time in Sydney, suggested that his side has been too slow to adapt to new conditions. He’s not wrong.

Yet that they have been so slow to adapt is surely unforgivable. There is a wealth of experience in the ranks but this, currently, is a terrible side.

All they have achieved in England and Australia is to confirm an age old stereotype that India are useless outside of India. Except at the moment, they really are completely useless. They’ve fared no better than Bangladesh would have.

As if to emphasise how far they have slipped, New Zealand were able to secure a series draw in Australia prior to India’s arrival. And they’ve been comprehensively battered by a far from vintage Aussie unit.

The other thing they have served to confirm is that they were indeed the worst ever number one ranked Test side when they sat atop the ICC rankings 12 months ago. Oh how things have changed since!

To be the best you have to beat the best, home and away. They beat Australia in India in October 2010, but have been playing a different game to the same opposition in January 2012.

To make matters worse, this current India set up is doing nothing for the game at large. The wretched insistence of the BCCI to refuse the Decision Review System is stifling progress in regards to technology’s advance into the sport.

The lack of referrals has cost India in Australia, but the BCCI is a stubborn mule.

Speaking of mules, another irritating aspect of Indian cricket is its high self regard. When Nasser Hussain ventured to suggest that India had, ‘fielded like donkeys’ during the Test series in England, many an Indian was up in arms.

The only ones with the right to offended were the donkeys. India’s displays with the bat and in the field would have been unharmed by the presence of a couple of asses.

The walls are closing in on India and they need to take a good, hard look at the game they are operating. The Indian Premier League is fast losing its global appeal and it won’t be long, certainly in these austere economic times, before the sponsors start to lose interest along with the fans who don’t turn up to the games.

India has no divine right to be considered the best cricketing nation on earth. They need to look at where they have gone right. Their World Cup win of last year would be a good starting point.

They won that tournament because they deserved to. They put in the hard yards and reaped what they had sown. In the same way, their delusions of grandeur on the Test scene have cost them dear.

After they limp away from Australia, India won’t be playing away from home, or certainly away from the sub-continent in Tests, until they travel to South Africa in November 2013.

Much work needs to be done before then, and there must be a changing of the guard. Dravid, Tendulkar, Laxman et al can’t keep plugging on forever.

Indian cricket needs to learn some harsh lessons, and it needs to learn them now for the good of its own cricket, and the game worldwide. The way things are at the moment is a disgrace to the legions of proud Indian fans worldwide.

Until things improve, no side can claim too much glory in defeating India. It’s just too easy.

By Miles Reucroft