The Australian batters collapsed to give away even the slender chance they may have had to stretch India in the cricket series. Their defeat in the second Test, which extends India’s safekeeping of the Border-Gavaskar trophy, was their own creation as it came about because of injudicious choice of a low success percentage stroke in the sweep shot, of various descriptions like the traditional sweep, reverse sweep, etc. that was employed as a strategy in their second innings.
Australian teams have been travelling to India since the 1950s and, even in better times as when they were during two hot winning streaks of 16 Tests on the trot, they used to characterise Test series in India as the “last frontier”. Having won a record 15 Test series since being beaten by Team England in 2012-13, Team India are an even formidable combination at home nowadays.
The Aussies, who meant to challenge Indian home superiority, came a cropper thanks to the sweep shot, with as many as six batsmen falling prey in the second innings of the Delhi Test in which the contest had been even stevens until Australia eked out a lead of a solitary run. A fight was potentially on the cards when, in the name of playing aggressive cricket, the visitors made the wrong choice. But that takes away nothing from another display of the fine combative instincts of the home team.
The marquee series may be only at its halfway point, but the Indians have thus far out-bowled the Aussie quicks while displaying customary superiority in the spin department with Jadeja and Ashwin proving a deadly combination working on the visiting batters in fascinating mind games as well as nuances in the air and off the pitch. Another feature has been the resilience of the batting shaped by three spinners in the Ravi twins and Axar Patel who have outshone many of their specialist batter colleagues.
Competitive and attritional as most of the play was, it is clear that batting standards are not what they used to be and the modern batters are ill at ease on anything but perfect surfaces. This makes us think whether five days are needed as most Test matches are ending well inside the time allotted. With spectator interest already tilting towards the white ball game, especially of the T20 kind, Test cricket may need a different kind of thinking.
