What a splendid win, one of the best I have been privileged to be present at. All the boasts about how the pitch is going to be pacy and bouncy and scare the living daylights out of the Indian batters were exactly that — the boasts of a bully. Mind you, it wasn’t the Aussie players but their support staff in the media, both electronic and print, who were trying to be scaremongers.
It was very similar to 2007/8 after the kerfuffle between Harbhajan Singh and Andrew Symonds in the Sydney Test match. The Australian selectors had added Shaun Tait to the Aussie squad for the next Test match in Perth, and the media were going nuts, suggesting he was going to blow the Indians away on the fast, bouncy WACA pitch in Perth. What happened? ‘The Wall’ was so solid, but before that, the swashbuckling Virender Sehwag had just swatted Brett Lee, Tait, and the others as if he was swatting the famous Perth flies. He singled out Tait for special attention as if to rubbish the Aussie media claims about the pacers scaring the Indian batters. At the end of the Test match, guess what happened? Tait took an indefinite break from international cricket. The Indians had the last laugh by winning the Test match and, if the umpires had not made some forgettable decisions under pressure from the Aussies in the previous Test match in Sydney, then India would have gone to Adelaide for the final Test of that series with the score 1-all.
This time India goes to Adelaide, having once again proven all the experts wrong in Perth with a performance that can be ranked in the top 10 victories in recent times. Jasprit Bumrah led from the front with a bowling effort that would have tested the greatest of batters across eras. He was constantly at them, and there was hardly a delivery that the batters could relax against, as he asked uncomfortable questions regularly. While Bumrah definitely had help from the pitch, the way the batters batted on an unfamiliar surface was most heartening.
That young Yashasvi Jaiswal showed he is a quick learner was evident by the straightness of his bat at the start of the second innings. As he settled down with wonderful guidance from K.L. Rahul at the other end, one could see the Aussie shoulders sagging at the inevitability of another big hundred from this prodigy. Their heads drooped even more as Virat Kohli cashed in on the solid platform set by the opening pair to get another century in Australia. These two hundreds were terrific, as was the 200-plus opening partnership, but the most impressive innings was from Nitish Reddy. He showed an awareness of what was required which belied the fact that he was making his Test debut. Even in the first innings, he displayed a refreshing grasp of scoring opportunities and ended up as the top scorer. His bowling too came in handy, and his fielding was outstanding. Here is a man for the future.
The panic in the Australian ranks is palpable, what with former players calling for heads to be chopped off and some even hinting at cracks in the Australian team after Josh Hazlewood’s media interview at the end of the third day’s play, where he suggested that it was up to the batters to now do something. Now, a few days later, Hazlewood is out of the second Test and possibly the series too with a supposed side strain. Strange, that, since nobody had noticed anything wrong with Hazlewood at that media conference. Mystery, mystery — the like of which used to be common in Indian cricket in the past. Now it’s the Aussies, and like old McDonald, I’m simply loving it.