After the year 2024 ended on a glorious note thanks to the glisten provided by the Chess stars Gukesh Dommaraju and Koneru Humpy with their respective World title winning performances, it was a bit of an anticlimax that the New Year should have begun on a downswing, so to say.

Cricket most unexpectedly had to be the reason. A sport that more often than not had been a source of joy and jubilation to the multitudes of fans has in recent times let them down badly it must be said. It started late last year when the Test team went down 0-3 to New Zealand in what was a stunning reversal. New Zealand had come to India after a series loss to Sri Lanka and then bounced back to do the stellar act. The clean sweep that India suffered was perhaps its worst in the over 90 years that the country had been playing this traditional format of cricket!

As if that was not enough was the engagement that followed and spilt on to the New year. The five-Test away series in Australia for The Border Gavaskar Trophy, considered the second biggest silverware in terms of stature after the Ashes in cricket and the biggest in terms of viewership, saw India ending up a 1- 3 loser. This reverse was the first in ten years. Australia had won this trophy last in 2014-15 and since then India had clinched the honours on four occasions. So that was another fall and what is more, the defeat also ended India's quest for a place in the summit round of the World Test Championship, again for the first time. To be sure, the year has not started on a promising note but maybe it has signalled the start of a transition in Indian cricket, at least in the Test format. Again hopefully!

With no other major sporting activity involving India on the anvil, the focus again will be on Indian cricket, for the shorter version (T20s and ODIs) involving India and England is soon to start. The prayer on the lips of every Indian cricket lover would be that the blue-attired Indians would do well in what they call 'white' ball cricket and erase the painful memories of the recent happenings. But then there is a full scale away Test series against England thereafter and so there will be much focus on the changes that can come about in the Test squad.

Yet for all this, the Australia story could have been so different had only India's batting not been as porous as it turned out most alarmingly. India had its moments, like the first Test where in the absence of Rohit Sharma, the regular captain who delayed his trip to Australia to welcome his second child back home, pacer Jasprit Bumrah led the country to victory. Bumrah himself led by example with some exemplary bowling that appeared to set the tone for the series. Rohit may have come back from the second Test but his batting form failed to return. Most unexpectedly even the team's iconic player Virat Kohli faced a form-fade, so to say. None to inspire and yet with some flashes of batting here and there, India seemed up to it for the fight back but it was a false premise.

Suffice to state it was Bumrah's bowling effort that had to be the key if India had to make an impression. Can anything more be said of the famed Indian batting line up! Bumrah with 32 wickets led the chart but even that kind of joy his bowling brought out for India, could not last as it were. In the final Test where runs were sparse, the spotlight was on the bowlers. Australia had them where as luck would have it, India's key man Bumrah, the skipper again, went out with back spasms. None was there to take over effectively, neither pace nor spin. Some believe, had Bumrah been there in full go, India could have probably hit back but it was not to be. In the end, instead of chins up and puffed up chests, the Indian players walked back heads bowed, the defeat overall was such a numbing experience!

How the Indian team will transform and regain the touch of old will be keenly watched in the days ahead. In particular the focus will be on the seniors. Rohit, Kohli, spinner Ravinder Jadeja are all past the mid-thirties and it is easy to say age can be just a number. Not after seeing them totter or fail to find the rhythm as in the case of Jadeja. Ravichandran Ashwin, India's quite successful spinner made things easy by retiring midway in the series. The onus now lies on the other seniors who are unable to find their desired form. As former India Test player and now a much-followed TV Commentator, Sanjay Manjrekar wrote in a leading English newspaper, emotions run high when those in positions are to take decisions on big players.

Be that as it may, this much is clear. India has to find young blood and here, as of now, there is no scarcity in the country. Cricket talents abound and get noticed thanks to the IPL and other high voltage domestic tournaments. The call then is for young batters adept to all kinds of bowling conditions and the next generation Indian squad will be ready for the challenges ahead. So, in a way 2025 has hopefully opened the doors for a transition and better days for Indian cricket and yes, Indian sports!