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There are defeats, and then there are indictments. India’s 2–1 ODI series loss to New Zealand at home, sealed by a 41-run defeat in Indore, belongs firmly in the latter category.  The even stranger question is how are the Kiwis, of all teams, shattering India’s once-vaunted home turf invincibility for the second time in less than two years?

New Zealand first inflicted a historic defeat when they whitewashed India 3–0 at home in 2024, a feat that was described as the first such clean sweep by a touring side in about 91 years of Test history for India in home Test series involving three or more matches.

And now comes the Indore ODI win for New Zealand who clinched the series despite not having their best players with them. The bare numbers sting. Chasing 338, India folded at 296 despite Virat Kohli’s imperious 124 from 108 balls, an innings of vintage authority cruelly wasted. New Zealand, clinical and unflustered, had earlier defended their total with discipline, Michael Bracewell’s 3 for 54 and Jacob Duffy’s timely strikes puncturing India’s chase.

Yet, his was not New Zealand at full strength. There was no Kane Williamson, no Rachin Ravindra, no Trent Boult or Matt Henry. What arrived instead was a side closer to New Zealand’s experimental bench than its first XI.

Under head coach Gautam Gambhir and his rhetorical swagger, Indian cricket has lurched from setback to setback. A heavy Border-Gavaskar Trophy loss in Australia. An ODI series defeat to Sri Lanka. Home Test series losses to New Zealand and South Africa. And now, ignominy piled upon ignominy, a home ODI series defeat to what critics dubbed New Zealand’s ‘C team’ which out-bowled and outplayed India in Indian conditions.

The backlash against Gambhir and chief selector Ajit Agarkar is justified given their tenure has been marked by bizarre selection choices and ‘strategic’ experiments that have yielded perplexity more than progress: dropping in-form Ruturaj Gaikwad after a century, leaving out seasoned campaigners like Mohammed Shami and Axar Patel, and an almost compulsive tinkering that denies any unit the stability to build momentum.

These are the symptoms of incoherent leadership and misplaced priorities. The richest board in world cricket, with the deepest reservoir of talent, should not be reduced to an experimental lab where proven performers are discarded on ideological grounds. Yet that is where India finds itself today.

Worse still, these defeats have a corrosive effect on belief. Test and ODI defeats on home pitches, once the inviolate bedrock of Indian confidence, now only foreshadow more losses. What should have been routine triumphs have now become sources of existential angst. A generation of fans, accustomed to dominance, is now forced to reckon with Indian vulnerability.

Whether New Zealand possesses some mystical key to conquering India is beside the point. The real question is why India no longer feels like the team it once was at home.