A couple of years ago, English cricketer Nasser Hussain scored a Test double century and occupied the crease for so long that the battery on the mobile phone in his kitbag went flat. When he got back to the dressing room, he had to borrow a teammates phone to ring home and share the news with his family.
Im not sure if Sachin Tendulkar and his lads have brought cellphones with them in their kitbags but only the captain would be in danger of consistently outlasting his battery. On paper, India should have been a difficult side to beat. There are five world-class cricketers in the playing eleven, yet they did not win a Test match on this tour. Anil Kumble and Javagal Srinath would walk into any bowling line-up, while Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid would be welcomed into batting slots in any Test-playing nation. So what went wrong on this tour? How is it that India lost the series, surrendering the first Test by a margin of 285 runs, the second by 180 runs and the third by an innings and 141 runs?
Lets start with the batting. Dravid just did not come to grips with the Australian wickets. That is a pity, not just for Indian fans but for purists too. As a former cricket writer who was brought up on the five-day game, I looked forward to seeing the Karnataka batsman lighting up the three-Test series. But Dravid was a disappointment. For someone whose pedigree matches his grit and his temperament, it must be said that his technique has been sorely tested by Australian conditions. He is a joy to watch, for he is so composed, well organised and clear in his methods. But the long Test innings completely eluded him on this tour and one can only hope that it steels him to become an even better player than he is. Great batsmen learn invaluable lessons from slumps in form; Dravid is too good a competitor not to learn from his horror tour of Australia.
Ganguly is all class and style, a credit to the Indian domestic competition and to his Test colleagues. There is majesty in his flashing blade and a sureness about his strokeplay that stamps him as one of the best cricketers to emerge from eastern India. But he too did not even come close to making a century during the three Tests on Australian soil. His scores of 60 and 43 in the first Test were defiant knocks but he and the other top-order batsmen needed to make hundreds if India was serious about taking the fight to the home team.
And then there is Tendulkar. What can one say about him thats not been said already? I first interviewed him seven years ago, just before the 1992 World Cup here in Australia. Even at that early stage in his career, you could sense that there was something special about this soft-spoken young man. Now, with 22 Test hundreds under his belt, he is undoubtedly the premier cricketer of this era.
He is also, in this age of sledging and combativeness, a true statesman. If he felt strongly about his controversial dismissal in the first Test, he hid it well. He had made 61 in the first innings and then, in the second, he ducked into a short ball from Glenn McGrath and was adjudged LBW for a duck. "I think the whole world has seen it," said Tendulkar. "I dont think I should be talking much about it. My job is to concentrate on the next four innings I have to play."
In the first five innings of Indias six, only one batsman got a hundred. Tendulkars effort in the Boxing Day Test match in Melbourne was not just a great innings but one that has to be seen in the context of his sides needs. Australia had made 405 and it looked as though the tourists would have to face the humiliation of a follow-on. Tendulkar, still a long way from three figures, had only the tail to bat with. This was one of the few sessions of play, apart from V.V.S. Laxmans stirring effort in Sydney, where there was a steely effort by India. The follow-on was averted, Tendulkar got his century and Kumble, batting at number 9, defied the Australians stoutly.
At Test level, theres little to separate one team from another. And when the level of talent in one team matches that in another, it is the mental factor that makes the difference. Alas, I do not think that the Indian team, as a whole, had enough faith in their combined ability. Did every single player walk out into the Tests honestly believing they could win? If they did, they certainly did not back that up the way they played.
Going into the Sydney Test match, the last in the series, India made one vital mistake. Having already lost the series, there was no virtue in playing it safe when picking the side. Yet, inexplicably, India adopted the cautious approach in selecting its squad. Sadagopan Ramesh was injured, so it would have been the natural option to replace him with Devang Gandhi. Instead, wicket-keeper M.S.K. Prasad was picked as a makeshift opener, opening up a spot for Hrishikesh Kanitkar to come in as an extra batsman.
It was the perfect example of a defensive team selection. Instead, India should have bitten the bullet and brought Gandhi back into the side. Opening the batting in a Test match is a specialist role. An opener must weather the new ball, see off the opposing sides fastest bowlers and set the platform for batsmen further down the order while occupying the crease for as long as possible. Had Gandhi and Laxman opened the batting together in Sydney, the Test could conceivably have been saved, perhaps even won. But the policy of caution failed on three counts. First, Prasad fell hopelessly short of the role of an opener, dismissed for 5 in the first innings and 3 in the second. Second, Kanitkar, brought in to strengthen the fragile batting, did nothing of the sort. He scored 10 in the first innings and 8 in the second. Third, and most importantly, the Test match was lost as well, when a draw or a win would have given India some measure of self-belief.
In the adversity of the third afternoon in Sydney, it was Laxman who rallied the troops, racing to a rousing hundred in only 114 balls. A middle-order batsmen for Hyderabad who opens for his country in the Test arena, the closest he had come to three figures was his innings of 90-plus in Calcutta. But in Sydney, with his team more than 400 runs in arrears and his more famous colleagues forming a steady procession back to the pavilion, it was Laxman who stood tall amid the devastation. Felled by a bouncer, he rose to continue punishing the bowling, finishing with a glorious 167 when only three other Indians reached double figures.
As Tendulkar said after the match had been lost, it was the perfect lesson in occupation of the crease. It was a revelation to watch this young man punish the bowling that had shackled his teammates. It was only the second century by an Indian in the entire series, but one that will help Laxman realise that it is not a sin for a top-order batsman to play his natural game. Perhaps Laxmans efforts in a Test that was all but lost, at the end of a series hopelessly surrendered, will breathe new life into Indias approach to Test cricket in the 21st century.
It was the tourists misfortune to come up against an Australian side that seemed to be endowed with a certain aura of invincibility. Steve Waughs men have now won seven consecutive Test matches, one against Zimbabwe, three against Pakistan and three against India. The Australian batting lineup is probably more powerful than at any other time in the modern game. How powerful? Judge that by the fact that they scored more than 400 in the first innings in five of the six Tests played on home soil this season. Twice in that six-Test span they have amassed more than 500; 575 in Brisbane against Pakistan and then the decisive 5-552 in Sydney against India before Waugh declared the innings closed.
It is easy to lose sight of a vital fact in the face of such overwhelming statistics. That vital fact is that three of the frontline Australian batsmen were actually in danger of losing their places in the side. Justin Langer, Mark Waugh and Ricky Ponting were no certainties to retain their spots. Langer then turned the tide with his 127 against Pakistan at Hobart when Australias cause seemed lost. Having saved his Test spot, Langer followed up with 144 at Perth against Pakistan. And then it was he who became the first Test cricketer to score a Test century in the new millennium. Bowled by Srinath off a no-ball before he had reached his 50 in Sydney, he spent several anxious moments on 99 before he reached three figures, going on to score 223.
The younger of the two Waughs has had a fairly mediocre Australian summer by his own lofty standards and was no certainty to play in the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne against India. However, he scored 44 and 51, took four catches and two vital wickets and retained his place for the Sydney Test, the 100th Test in his career.
And Ponting? He had a horror start in the series against Pakistan, a sequence of 0, did not bat, 0, 0. He was still picked for the next Test and scored a peerless 197. He has since added two more hundreds, proving that Australias selectors were correct in picking him.
So a side with three batsmen fighting for their places still managed to break all sorts of records. Let us not forget, either, that Gilchrist, such an established figure in Australias one-day side, has spent less than three months in the Test side. Following on from his match-winning century in Hobart, his string of 50-plus scores has added a new flexibility to the batting order, even winning him a promotion ahead of Mark Waugh when quick runs were needed against India in Melbourne.
Even Warne and Fleming have been among the runs this summer. Warne has clubbed a couple of 80-plus scores and Fleming, who has built on the confidence generated by a whirlwind 70-plus against England in the last Ashes series, has been determined to outdo his fellow Victorian. Australia, it seems, has found the golden touch. There is a batting lineup with no apparent tail. A wicket-keeper doubles as a champion bastman. A fast bowler, Brett Lee, picked for his debut in Melbourne, takes 7-78 and then proves he can bat a bit. This is a bowling attack so strong that there is no place for spinner Stuart MacGill or fast bowler Jason Gillespie.
There is no such thing as an easy Test match against Australia. Even if a side matched Waughs men in terms of talent and depth, the Australians would probably have the mental edge that would see them through to victory. However, the best thing of all about Australian cricket, in a series tainted by McGraths loutish behaviour in his sending-off of Tendulkar in Sydney, came at the end of the same Test match. A young man called Laxman walked off the SCG turf, having given India its proudest moment in the series. And Brett Lee, having dismissed the Hyderabad batsman, called out to him and congratulated him on his spectacular performance. Then Langer, hero of Australias win, clapped the Indian opener on his shoulder in admiration of his effortless batting. Who said one-day cricket would have killed Test cricket by the end of the 20th century?
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