India history
Flickr photo by vijay chennupati shared under a Creative Commons (BY 2.0) license.

India create history as Australia’s struggles continue

Mustafa Ismail·
Test
·1 Comment·

After decades of Australian dominance on home soil, India created history with a convincing away series victory…

For the first time in history, India managed to win a Test series in Australia. Under Virat Kohli’s captaincy, India played high-quality cricket and garnered applause from the entire cricketing community, including ex-Australian players. It was admittedly a weakened Australian side without David Warner and Steve Smith, but they still possessed arguably the best bowling quartet in the international circuit. Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Pat Cummins, and Nathan Lyon have the ability to terrorise any batting line-up in the world – as England found out in last year’s Ashes. However, this formidable attack came up against the wall that is Cheteshwar Pujara, as he blunted them with infinite patience and focus.

India’s batting proved to be the difference on this tour – especially after failing in South Africa and England as they finally took the burden off Kohli and batted responsibly. In the last two tours, the captain and the bowlers carried the team but with everyone pitching in against Australia, you could see the difference. Pujara, in particular, was a class above the rest as his three hundreds and one fifty will go down in history for putting India in the driver’s seat. He displayed a high level of composure and concentration, wearing down the Australian bowlers with his compact defence. Pujara’s county stint with Yorkshire has improved him as a player, with the fine-tuning of his footwork and defence allowing him to avoid needless dismissals.

Pujara was consistently able to convert his slow starts into hundreds, which made him a more significant threat than Kohli in the series. He’s undoubtedly been India’s most improved player over the last year due to his dedication to Test cricket and his willingness to work on his weaknesses. Mind you, Pujara will be receiving quite a few phone calls from cement and glue companies after the grit and determination he showed on the pitch. With the most runs scored, most balls faced, and the most hours spent at the crease by a batsman, Pujara was indeed the Man of the Series.

The openers slot was a huge issue in the first couple of games, with Prithvi Shaw injured and both K. L. Rahul and Murali Vijay failing consistently. In came young Mayank Agarwal, who took the Boxing Day Test by storm with a wonderful fifty on debut and gave India the start they were desperate for all year. Agarwal balanced both defence and attack beautifully, not looking like a debutant in either of the two games he played during series. Credit must be given to the strength of first-class cricket in India and the talent available, but also to Kohli and the team management for having faith in the youngsters on the biggest stage. They saw off the new ball in the first innings of both the third and fourth Test, providing the likes of Pujara and Rahane with some respite.

Rishab Pant’s contribution was also immense for India given that it was his first tour of Australia, but more work is needed on both his keeping and batting. It’s not easy to keep on Australian wickets and Pant did a great job – especially on a bouncy pitch in Perth as he was diving away and collecting the ball neatly. He contributed in every game with the bat, notching twenties and thirties while batting with the tail. Let’s not forget that in the last Test of the series, he scored a squash buckling 150, proving that he has it in him to play Test cricket for the foreseeable future.

This bowling attack has been sensational all year – but since the start of the South Africa tour, the current fast-bowling unit has established itself as the most potent India have produced in recent history (and possibly ever). Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah have all been brilliant, forming bowling partnerships to trap the batsmen. It used to be a rare sight to see Indian fast bowlers beat the opposition batsmen with raw pace and bounce. However, the two key differences between India and Australia’s attack were that the Indian bowlers attacked the stumps more while the Australian batsmen were a tad short and wide. This created more wicket-taking opportunities for India as the Aussies struggled to push beyond containing the batsmen.

Secondly, the Indian bowlers used the older ball much better as the likes of Shami got the ball to reverse and made life even more difficult for the batsmen. The spinners bowled really well throughout the series as well, with Ashwin performing well in Adelaide before picking up an injury. Jadeja took over in Melbourne and used the rough brilliantly to dismiss the batsmen. In the final test at Sydney, he was joined by Kuldeep Yadav, who picked up a five-wicket haul with brilliant flight and guile.

The praise can’t end without talking about the captain himself. Virat Kohli, who did not have a brilliant series with the bat given his high standards, improved leaps and bounds as captain. He learnt from his mistakes and wasn’t too defensive against the tail in Australia. Even though the lower order’s contribution bothered him here as well, it wasn’t as dangerous because he looked to attack instead of containing them. Kohli’s bowling changes were top-drawer throughout the series. He knew when to rotate his fast bowlers and always backed them to bowl aggressively and look for wickets.

To add to that, his field placements also improved a lot – not only for the tail-enders but also for the specialist batsmen. Both Finch and Labuchagne fell into the trap of flicking the ball to short mid-wicket. Kohli has been criticised a lot for his team selection, but he got that right as well. He took a massive risk by dropping his two openers for the Boxing Day Test and going with Mayank Agarwal, a debutant, and Hanuma Vihari, who usually slots in at number six. Playing Kuldeep in the final Test instead of a third seamer might’ve raised quite a few eyebrows, but Kohli won the toss and Kuldeep more than justified the choice with a five-for.

These decisions turned out to be master-strokes on the Indian’s captain’s part. Sometimes results do not go your way and your choices are heavily criticised, but Kohli doesn’t seem worried about taking risks as long as they give his team a chance to win. His passion for Test cricket has rubbed off on the rest of the team, and you could see how much the series win meant to each and every player. There is still room for improvement, but this mammoth triumph will provide plenty of motivation to India to continue creating history.