doesn't touting that rather sit at odds with the other line that indian batsmen can't make long innings because they're too obsessed with the IPL? when lots of contradictory reasons get brought up for a teams imminent decline it just sounds like people have decided they will decline and will happily endorse any arguement that suits what they already believe.
I don't see the link really. Historically its a fact india's first-class bowling has always been poor, especially in the quick bowling area. Kapil Dev, Srinath & Zaheer is the only three fast-bowlers in the countries history that of been of solid test standard - that tells you everything. Which is why a procession of india batsmen for over 80 years may dominate in first-class with high averages - but get found out when the face high quality pace. So if an Indian batsman averages 50-60 in their domestic game - it has to be taken with a massive pinch of salt until the come on the world stage and bat. Its only the special ones like gavaskar, tendulkar etc break the norm
You could more accept a australian, english or s africa (windies to some degree in their heyday) with such an average from their first-class system because the standards of their first-class systems is much closer to that of test cricket.
simply put, india have far too much depth. kohli and pujara are hardly bad players to bring into the batting line up, pretty sure a couple of the numerous potential batsmen they have will actually be good enough to play test cricket long term.
I'm not cheerleading for them, they've been pretty guff, and it does look like it will be a while before they're pushing the no.1 spot again. I'd certainly reckon they'll be comfortably beaten by south africa soon. but if anyone seriously thinks they're going to slip to the level of the west indies who still find a place in their team for bowlers that average over 40 and who's young hopefuls like like barat and braithewaite are batting about 20 then I'd happily take that bet. (especially seeing as the windies have still given no indication they're ready to move on from relying heavily on chanderpaul, who is about a year younger than tendulkar)
they play test cricket at a different level from new zealand and the west indies, they are miles apart.
As other indian posters have mentioned if india's selectors get super brave 2moro and decide to drop gambhir, sehwag & tendy - india certainly have the performing batsmen scoring heavily domestically as usual like rahane, mukund, mandeep sigh, tiwary, sharma, badrinath, dhawan who they can throw into the test team to play alongside kohili & pujara.
But for aforementioned reasons, that batting "depth" could easily turn out to be test failures like yuvraj, raina, vijay, kambli - because of historical trend most talented indian batsmen coming from the first-class game struggle to adapt to test out - except an elite few like big 5 of tendy, dravid, vvs, azhar, ganguly or the 80s 70s/80s trio of gavaskar, vishy & vengsarkar.
2002-2011 was the most consistent era of india cricket in tests. Before that they were losing overseas in n zealand & windies (when they were in decline) could not even beat zimbabwe overseas. Although im not suggesting they will reach back to those low heights in test, its not unimaginable that they could slip behind the west indies who are improving & as i showed you before, a west indies (a) team recently beat an india (a) team in the caribbean in july, which tells me that the current india team in decline is by no means miles ahead of the windies.
West Indies have fast bowlers who can rough up indian next generation of batsmen if can't overcame their historical Achilles heel of playing pace. Which will very much balance out for india probably having better upcoming batting talent than the windies - even if Chanderpaul retires soon (although i suspect he might play until 40) & the usual lack of indian fast-bowlers & sudden lack of truly quality spinners that they traditionally produced every week.
