The Indian team's weaknesses are now an open secret and espnstar.com's Ayanjit Sen takes a look at their recent show.

The ICC  World Twenty20 debacle this year was a bitter pill to swallow. The ICC Champions Trophy showed poor bench strength in the absence of Virender Sehwag, Zaheer Khan and Yuvraj Singh and the recent India-Australia ODI series was no better.

They lost the home series to a team which struggled even to field eleven players.

With the likes of Michael Clarke, Brad Haddin, Brett Lee, James Hopes and Peter Siddle not playing for their national team, the Aussie team looked weak. But it was only on paper as the team convincingly beat India.

Failure of the Indian batsmen is a potent reason behind these failures.

Even the captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni pointed out the collective batting failure against the Aussies. Individual players have scored but that is not enough as the matches lost in Mohali and Hyderabad bears testimony to it.

The failure to get a good start has added to the batting woes of the Indian team.

Barring a match or two, the opening partnership has hovered around the 40 mark.

All the advantages - a full strength team, home crowd support, injury-hit opponent - could not be translated into strengths.

One is to harness your strengths and overcome your weaknesses - the Dhoni-led side could not do either.

Lack of right application in crunch situations mirrors an area that the new team entrants need to grasp quickly.

India needs to take a strong look at their ability to judge the situation at hand.

Changing of the innings gear, has time and again, cropped up as an impediment in scaling the ladder of victory.

The match at Hyderabad witnessed the top-rung Australian batsmen firing on all cylinders but in reply, it was only Sachin Tendulkar and some support from Suresh Raina. 

The bowling and fielding departments also saw some sunlight once in a while.

The fallout of the string of defeats was the relegation of the team to the third sport in the ICC rankings.

The only silver lining is that they have a 60 percent winning record in one-dayers this year.

Now, the home series against Sri Lanka is round the corner.

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The selectors have made a few changes in the batting and bowling department with the return of Zaheer Khan and S Sreesanth in the Test sqaud.

Agreed that the Sri Lankan side cannot shy away from an unalienable truth - they have never won a Test match in India in thirty years.

But the team under Kumar Sangakkara is all pepped up to corner their opponents on their own turf.

The ammunition in the Sri Lankan armoury boasts of Tharanga Paranavithana and Tilleratne Dilshan apart from the other old experienced hands. They also have two uncapped players - Thilina Kandamby and Kaushal Silva to strengthen their batting line-up.

Sri Lanka is currently the number two Test side behind South Africa.

The pressure would be on India to maintain their unbeaten record.

Armed with three spinners in the squad with Laxman and Dravid adding strength to the batting line-up, India now need to deliver.

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India have played three Tests this year and has won one.

The inclusion of Ishant Sharma in the squad remains a question mark but after an average performance so far this year, it is time the Indian think tank and players pull up their socks.

At the end of the day, eleven great names do not make a winning team. They need to deliver.

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