Disaster spelt India's comeback

Daniel Laidlaw

Australia's tour of India began with considerable amount of speculation and anticipation. After thrashing an inferior West Indies team at home in an unprecedented season of dominance, it was hoped the tour of India would provide an accurate measure of Australia's standing. After dominating meek opponents, the prospect of seeing Australia confronted by a vastly different team willing to attack was a thought to relish.

The tour was surrounded in uncertainty because it pitted Australia's recent invincibility in a setting in which it had not tasted victory for 32 years. The consensus of Aussie opinion seemed to be that Australia would triumph 1-0, with the belief that India might prepare flat pitches to blunt Australia's pace attack and that high-scoring draws would ensue.

There was little warning of what was in store. After India's defeat inside three days in the series opener in Mumbai, the first Test was written off as an Australian walkover. In reality, it was just as gripping as the subsequent two and in dispute for the majority of its relatively brief duration. It will be remembered in history as merely the disaster that made India's comeback all the more meritorious, but had Australia claimed the series, it would have been recalled for the breathtaking and match-winning partnership between Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist that precipitated a series triumph.

On a pitch that turned appreciably, Steve Waugh made the bold decision to insert the opposition and pursue the plan of attacking the home team with pace. It paid off, as India was rolled for 176 and Australia was positioned to take command of the series after just one day. But in the first of what were to be continual dramatic turns in play, Australia plunged to 5/99 and the fatal prospect of conceding a first innings lead loomed.

Enter Gilchrist. In a situation that apparently called for a desperate scrap for survival, Australia's dynamic No. 7 played an innings of stunning fearlessness, essaying risky sweeps with emphatic effect. In conjunction with Hayden, who likewise employed the sweep with a savage consistency that had India in shock, Gilchrist rescued the match as Australia registered an improbable 173-run first innings lead.

Despite those batting fireworks, the enduring image of the first Test was Ricky Ponting's sprint and full-length dive to hold a catch at mid wicket to dismiss Tendulkar after the ball rebounded from Langer's shoulder at short leg. There was no indication that this kind of fortune, smiling so serenely on the tourists while they took the initiative, was about to savagely turn against them.

Having severely shaken India's misplaced pre-series confidence with victory No. 16, the second Test proceeded along the same lines as the first as the possibility of another remarkable whitewash came in to focus. Hayden, impervious to all bowlers, fell three runs short of consecutive Test centuries. He guided Australia to a superb start only for it to crumble to Harbhajan, before Steve Waugh seemingly set up a historic victory with an emotional hundred on one of his favourite grounds.

At that time, Waugh must have felt that India was not such a daunting environment after all. He might have considered the fact that Australia had not won there for three decades a mere statistical anomaly. It was still Test cricket and Australia was still playing like the mighty juggernaut that had swept most before it. Then one man changed all that and showed how fragile Australia's hold on the series really was.

Although Harbhajan Singh won the series with 32 wickets, Laxman was the catalyst behind the great comeback. There was little the Australians could do to stop him. Despite the signs, initially it was not believable that Laxman and Dravid were changing the course of the match, simply due to the sheer number of runs they had to score and the fact India had collapsed in the midst of a potential comeback in the first Test. By tea on day four, though, confirmation had set it in that the revival was indeed genuine, and that Australia had a dangerously confident opponent on its hands.

Forced into the alien position of having to bat for a draw, an anathema to Australia in recent times, the Australians batted like they could not accept victory was out of reach, something Ganguly had gone to great lengths to ensure by delaying his declaration.

What followed was the first of two collapses responsible for losing the series. If Harbhajan had proven his ability with a hat-trick and 7 wickets in the first innings, then he introduced his match-winning qualities in the second with a further six. A series of poor shots brought the crowd into the game, swung the momentum to India, and saw the series remarkably levelled at 1-1.

Managing to put the demoralising shock of Kolkata behind them, the tourists began the third Test with a stunning degree of confidence, putting 140 runs on the board by lunch on day 1. Hayden turned an excellent series into a record one as Australia reached 3/326, a position from which it again should have controlled the match. Squandered opportunities were becoming a theme, however, as the second of the catastrophic collapses ensued that would ultimately cost the Aussies the series.

If there was any proof required of how the series had turned full circle, it came on day 3. Tendulkar, in ominous form on 82, mishit Miller to deep mid wicket only for Slater, running in from the boundary, to spill the chance by leaping at the ball in celebration before it reached him. The contrast between Slater's dropped catch and Ponting's opportunistic diving snare in Mumbai could not have been starker. India held the ascendancy and the Aussies could not even accept regulation opportunities. A heroic fightback with the ball that almost snatched an impossible victory ensured the series would live long in the memory, but victory was destined to be India's.

After such a draining Test series, the one-dayers were an unwelcome inconvenience in the way of a much-needed rest. Viewed from any angle, a successful one-day series could do nothing to make up for the heartbreak of the Test loss. At least it allowed Australia to finish the tour on a positive note, breaking the loss-win-loss-win sequence to register consecutive victories at the end of the series and maintain it's one-day reputation.

A jaded Australia faltered under the pressure of a chasing a large target in Bangalore, came back in Pune thanks to Mark Waugh's hundred, then found itself 2-1 down in Indore after conceding 299 runs and suffering a massive batting reversal. A record total courtesy of Hayden's first ODI hundred and a return to form by Ponting then won the fourth game to level the series 2-2. Originally scheduled to fly home, Matthew Hayden was belatedly included in the one-day squad and simply continued his form, batting with equal assurance in one-dayers to be Australia's undisputed hero of the tour.

After making a promising start in pursuit of India's 265 in the deciding match, a negative feeling of déjà vu began to take hold midway through Australia's chase. As the extra batsmen were made redundant by perishing cheaply, it seemed Australia would follow the trend of its tour and succumb once again. But to the credit of a calculating Bevan and Ian Harvey, they stood firm and broke the pattern of capitulation. The spirit shown in defying the trend, more than an inconsequential one-day series victory itself, made it a heartening conclusion to a failed tour.

You can also read:
Australia's deficiencies were exposed
Series Overview: Australia | India

Mail Daniel Laidlaw