When the Indian team bus veered into the ACA Stadium on Wednesday morning, head coach Gautam Gambhir was perched in the front seat with the typical poker-face. The digits plastered over his jaw still suggested a worrying undercurrent. The bastions of the famous “Final Frontier” were collapsing. After four successive home Test defeats to SENA teams and as many days of protracted embarrassment in Guwahati, Gambhir and an ecosystem curated entirely to his design, was trying to salvage a quantum of the great Indian red-ball game from the ruins for posterity. A drier day, a shriveling pitch and the inexplicable surrender of the top order under 120 minutes resigned Gambhir’s India to their heaviest defeat by runs (408) in history, an unforgettable blot on the great Indian home canvas spanning 298 matches. A day after the BCCI had unveiled “a first-of-its-kind” official colour partner, their glorious 92-year-old Test team had conceded a second whitewash at home in a year. The alarm bells from the 3-0 hammering to New Zealand in late 2024 unofficially began the …