Hyderabad: Team India, led by stand-in captain Ajinkya Rahane, has handed Australia a shocking 2-1 Test series defeat on Tuesday, registering a thrilling three-wicket win over the hosts at The Gabba, Brisbane. This win is special not only because of India's second successive Test series win on Australian soil in their 73 years of tour history Down Under, but also because of the fact that no other Test side from Asia has ever achieved this remarkable feat in the history of Test cricket.
By retaining the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, India have also become only the third team to win back to back Test series in Australia. Only England and West Indies won two or more consecutive series Down Under.
Add to that, the Indian team has breached Australia's Gabba fortress where the hosts had lost their last Test in 1988 when the mighty West Indies led by Viv Richards thrashed Allan Border's Australia by nine wickets for the last time.
Rishabh Pant and Navdeep Saini celebrate after winning the Brisbane Test on Tuesday. Beating Australia in Australia has always been a very difficult task, but when opposition bowlers are Malcolm Marshall, Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh, hosts hardly get any time to complain. That was what had happened in 1988.
But history will remember India's maiden Brisbane Test win for a special reason. India not only emulated their previous Down Under series victory, but they also cleaved the hosts' pride of holding Gabba as their fortress. Australia had never let any team beat them for the last 31 years.
In the past three decades, Australian batsmen negotiated many fearsome fast bowlers in Ambrose, Walsh, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Shaun Pollock, Allan Donald and Shoaib Akhtar in the 1990s and early 2000s, and James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Dale Steyn later in this millennium. None of them could breach Australia's fortress, The Gabba.
In contrast, when opposition teams came to bat, the likes of Glenn McGrath, Brett Lee, Jason Gilespie, Michael Kasprowicz and Mitchell Johnson intimidated them in such a dangerous way that some of the batsmen never returned to Australia again to play.
Cheteshwar Pujara stood like a rock during his 56 runs knock off 146 balls in the fourth innings of Brisbane Test. But India's thrilling three-wicket victory at The Gabba told something special about this current Indian cricket team. And at the same time, Australia's gutted performance has raised questions on the current status of Australian cricket.
For India, 2018-19 was about winning a Test series in Australia with a full-strength team, and the 2020-2021 tour, sans six veteran Test cricketers, was not only about proving how strong India's reserve bench is, but also about sparking debate on the standard of this Australian Test team.
They are not an average side. With Steve Smith, David Warner, Tim Paine and Marnus Labuchagne in the batting department and Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon in the bowling attack this Australian team boasted of its best players of the time.
Their inability to get better of a young Indian team, comprising rookies like Shubman Gill, Rishabh Pant, Washington Sundar, Mohammed Siraj, T Natarajan and Navdeep Saini, means Australia need a serious relook at their test team.
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While captain Virat Kohli left for home on paternity leave after playing the Pink Ball Test in Adelaide, the likes of Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav, Ravichandran Ashwin, Jasprit Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja, KL Rahul and Hanuma Vihari picked up injuries at different stages of the tour. Their absence left India to play with a half-strength team. In fact, Sundar and Natarajan went to Australia as nets bowlers.
Shubman Gill played a 91-run match-winning knock in India's second innings of Brisbane Test. Siraj, Thakur, Natarajan, Saini and Sundar with a combined experience of 9 Tests (including the Brisbane Test) did what legendary bowlers of the game failed to achieve at Brisbane in the last three decades - bowl out Australia twice at The Gabba. Siraj in the second innings claimed his first five-for being the Indian attack's most experienced bowler with only three Test caps to his credit. It is, of course, an achievement for India's young bowling unit. And they deserve high praise for it.
On the other hand, Starc, Cummins, Hazlewood and Lyon with a combined experience of 254 Tests (including Brisbane Test) failed to bowl out India in the fourth innings of the match when Gill, Pujara, Sundar and Pant were chasing a mammoth 328 runs target on a cracked wicket.
In the batting department too, India's combined experience was 217 Test in comparison to Australia's 266. Still, the young guns like Gill, Pant, Sundar and Thakur in support of experienced pros Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara did much better than the veterans of Australia to return home with a remarkable win from Brisbane.
It will not be out of place to claim that India's win in Brisbane against a full-strength Australia is a result of meticulous planning and hard work put in by BCCI, selectors and National Crickey Academy director Rahul Dravid.
Youngsters proving to be too good for their experienced Australian counterparts is an attestation of the progressive outlook of present-day Indian cricket where the use of high-end technology and performance analysis software is rampant.
The Australia series-winning Indian team reaped the fruit of competitive domestic cricket, legend Rahul Dravid's watchful eyes on emerging cricketers at the NCA and a nerve-wracking IPL.
Mohammed Siraj finished his debut Test series becoming India's highest wicket-taker picking 13 wickets in three Tests. This combination of three taught young Indian players how to absorb pressure at crunch situations and take the match away from oppositions, irrespective of conditions.
In India's second innings while chasing 324 on the fifth day at the Gabba's cracked-wicket, Shubamn Gill (91), Pujara (56), Pant (89 not out) and Sundar (22) nullified Cummins' wrath and Lyon's craft to take India home. Earlier, in the first innings, Sundar and Thakur built a brilliant 123-run partnership for the eight-wicket to kept India alive in the game.
Their contributions both with the bat and ball deserve millions of applause for hunting down Australia at their well-guarded fortress, The Gabba.
Now, following this magnificent victory, the selection committee going forward will have a tough time while picking the future Indian team.
Though experienced cogs like Ashwin, Jadeja, Shami, Unessh and Bumrah will be an automatic pick for India in the Test, youngsters Siraj, Sundar, Pant and Gill don't deserve to be dropped either following their inspirational performances in Australia.
-- By Sudipta Biswas
