Talent is cheap in India. It’s the one thing we’ve got too much of. We produce top-order batters like Shenzhen produces generic power banks: fast, shiny, and largely interchangeable until the voltage spikes. Right now, Abhishek Sharma and Tilak Varma are looking like first-gen hardware that wasn't ready for the public release. They’ve got the specs. They’ve got the hype. But the OS is crashing under the weight of a billion expectations.

The problem isn't their technique. You don't get this far without knowing how to hold a piece of willow. The problem is the "Blue Jersey Tax." In the IPL, these kids play like they’re at a beach party—free, loose, and slightly reckless. But stick them in a national kit and suddenly they’re playing like they’ve got a mortgage they can’t afford and a boss who hates them. Because, in a way, they do.

Abhishek looks like a man trying to speed-run a video game. He’s swinging at ghosts. There’s this frantic energy to his batting lately, a desperate need to prove he’s the "next big thing" before the next next big thing shows up in the dugout. It’s a bug in the code. He’s forgotten that a T20 innings lasts more than six balls. When you’re trying that hard to be aggressive, you aren't actually attacking; you’re just panicking with a high backlift.

Then there’s Tilak. He was supposed to be the "mature" one. The guy who could anchor an innings without making it look like a funeral procession. Instead, he looks stuck. He’s caught in that miserable middle ground where you’re too afraid to get out and too scared to score. It’s the cricket equivalent of the spinning rainbow wheel on a Mac. You know something is supposed to happen, but you’re just sitting there watching your life pass by.

The friction here is obvious, and it’s expensive. In the Indian cricket ecosystem, a slump isn't just a bad run of form. It’s a devaluation of the brand. Every low score is a hit to the market cap. The trade-off for the fame and the luxury SUV endorsements is a leash so short it’s practically a choker. The management—Gautam Gambhir and whoever else is holding the clipboard this week—needs to stop treating these players like disposable assets.

What must they do? For starters, stop the musical chairs. The quickest way to ruin a young player’s head is to make them feel like they’re one bad shot away from a flight back to domestic obscurity. The bench is currently packed with talent waiting for a mistake. It’s a cutthroat environment that rewards safety, even though the team claims to want "fearless" cricket. You can’t tell a guy to play with freedom and then stare at your watch every time he plays a dot ball.

Gambhir loves to talk about "intent." It’s the buzzword of the season. But intent without security is just a suicide mission. If the management wants Abhishek to be the wrecking ball, they have to give him a contract that says he’s the wrecking ball for the next ten games, regardless of whether he gets a duck or a ton. You can't ask someone to "disrupt" if they're worried about their job security.

The current approach feels like a tech startup trying to "move fast and break things" while also demanding a 100% uptime. It’s a contradiction. You either want the high-risk, high-reward chaos of Abhishek’s swing, or you want the boring stability of the old guard. You don't get both.

The price of this indecision is a pair of paralyzed prodigies. We’re watching two of the most gifted players of their generation turn into shadows because they’re overthinking the physics of a game they used to play by instinct. They’re playing against the scoreboard, the opposition, and the ghosts of the legends who came before them. That’s a lot of weight for a pair of twenty-something shoulders.

India doesn't need more talent scouts; it needs a few decent psychologists and a management team that knows how to silence the noise. If they don't fix the environment, they’ll just keep burning through these kids like high-end batteries that won't hold a charge.

Is this the new normal for the Indian pipeline? A cycle of hype, debut, and inevitable burnout before the age of twenty-five?