The purists would derive a sense of romanticism from New Zealand’s triumph in the World Test Championship’s inaugural edition, but in the hard fought world of professional sport, India’s defeat in the final has opened a lot of old wounds that will haunt Virat Kohli’s men on the tour.

More than their choice of two spinners in cold and blustery conditions, it is the batting failures that stood out in the three-and-a-half days of cricket. The famed line-up miserably failed the technical and temperamental test against the Dukes ball.

Less than 24 hours after the debacle, the team management sent an SOS to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) requesting that at least a couple of warm-up matches be arranged before the Test series against England, which begins early August.

But the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) turned down BCCI’s request for matches against county sides because of a packed schedule. The Vitality T20 Blast is currently on along with the T20I series against Sri Lanka. The Royal London One-day Cup and The Hundred, ECB’s franchise-based 100-ball tournament, begins next month.

Another reason for ECB’s refusal to organise warm-ups has been the bio-security bubble that have been put in place for the Indians. For now the Indian players have been given a break and will assemble in Durham in the middle of July.

The initial plan was to play India A, who were also due to tour England, in two first-class games, at Northamptonshire and Leicestershire. But the tour got cancelled because of the pandemic and the Indians will now have to do with intra-squad matches.

Virat Kohli was livid at the lack of practice matches after the WTC final. “That doesn’t depend on us,” the India skipper had said. “We obviously wanted first-class games, which I believe have not been given to us. I don’t know what the reasons for that are...”

That’s an issue raised by former captain Dilip Vengsarkar as well. “New Zealand were there in England well ahead of the WTC final. They played two Tests and were high on confidence. More importantly, their players were match fit. India looked a bit rusty and the lack of match practice showed,” the former chief selector told The Telegraph.

To make it worse, Kohli has now gone through eight Tests without a century. Vengsarkar though isn’t ready to read much into it.

“Kohli is a great player. A century is not the ultimate thing. I’m not keen on judging a player on the basis of his scoring a hundred,” he said.

Batting has been India’s bane in England since 2007. None of the current Indian Test batsmen averages above 40 in England with Kohli’s 35.64 being the best. For India to flourish, Kohli has to excel.