PERTH: It was a series that began amid much hope, hype and hoopla. This, we were assured, was India's best chance to make history by winning its maiden series in Australia. The Aussies were in disarray, their batting was suspect, their bowling inexperienced. India, on the other hand, boasted the most feared batting line-up in the world.There was swashbuckler Sehwag, the scourge of bowlers. There was Rahul Dravid , the highest run-getter in Tests in 2011 and the second highest scorer of all time. There was Very Very Special Laxman, who had always reserved his most magical moments for the Aussies. There was our canny captain MS Dhoni . And, of course, there was Sachin Tendulkar . India had been waiting for God to deliver for a while, but he was surely destined to get his 100th century in front of adoring fans Down Under. The 0-4 debacle against England last year was a nightmare, a mere aberration. India's galacticos would make their last tour of Australia a memorable one.Just nine days of action later (the first two Tests both ended within four days), the script has gone horribly wrong. Mauled at Melbourne, slammed at Sydney, and now pummelled at Perth on Friday the 13th, another whitewash looms for Dhoni's men. The 1978-79 tour of Pakistan spelt doom for India's fabled spin quartet. This series threatens to do the same for our ageing batting maestros.On a day when the India was shot out for 161 and Australia raced to 149/0 (with David Warner scoring a 69-ball ton, the fastest against India) Sunil Gavaskar articulated the thoughts of many Indian fans. "What India now needs to do very, very quickly is to look forward and not backward. If it unfortunately means that we have to say goodbye to some of the players who have served the country for so long and so wonderfully, that's what we have to do," he said.The failures have been spread all around. Sehwag has looked out of sorts, Laxman is getting starts but failing to build on them. The Wall is now being cruelly referred to as a walking wicket. With bowlers getting past his once impregnable defence seemingly at will, his thoughts seem to be in as much disarray as his stumps frequently are these days.As for Tendulkar, as and when his 100th arrives after an interminable wait, it will have lost much of its lustre. If it comes in Australia, it will only momentarily alleviate the overwhelming gloom. If it comes in India, it will be devalued by charges of having been attained on a friendly track. As regards Dhoni, he has already indicated that he may bow out of Tests by the end of 2013. But if India ends up being whitewashed on two successive tours, he may soon be leading the team only in coloured clothes.There's still a lot of cricket to be played in this series. But the signs were not encouraging on Friday. The Indian demigods once again displayed feet of clay on a lively WACA track as the chorus of "hum honge kaamyab..." on the grass banks soon changed to "hai hai".In the secretive world of Indian cricket, we may never get to know on whose advice Team India decided to go into the third Test with four pacers. It is being passed off as a "team decision", but Dhoni and coach Duncan Fletcher can hardly shrug it off after the pacers were flogged by Australian openers David Warner and Ed Cowan. The 25-year-old Warner was quick to rub salt into India's wounds after making a blistering unbeaten 104."The challenge before them is to work out how they can play outside India," he said. "I don't know when Tendulkar and Dravid retire where Indian cricket is going to be. Will the youngsters come through?" he wondered.But if India's players are hurting from the debacles, they are certainly not showing it. When Virat Kohli, who top-scored with 44, was asked about his low scores in the series, the young turk shot back, "Scoring eight hundreds in one-day internationals can't be a fluke. It's international cricket as well. I don't know why people have been questioning my technique or temperament so much." He also attributed the huge gulf between the two teams to lady luck not smiling on India.The others are also keeping their own counsel or avoiding direct answers to straight questions. There appears to be a crisis of communication in the Indian dressing room, for the points being made by the coaching team are either not sinking into the players or are being ignored.In the pre-series build-up, a TV channel chose to brand this tour as the Agneepath series. As people who saw that movie might remember, there was no happy ending. But at least the hero put up a fight. Right now, Indian fans would settle even for that.