Toss: AUS chose to bat. AUS: 263 & 113. IND: 262 & 118/4. IND won by 6 wickets.
G’day, cricket fans. What transpired in Delhi after Australia’s emphatic defeat by an innings at Nagpur? Well, nothing very different. Australia fielded themselves to a winning position after bowling India out and starting their 2nd innings with a 1-run lead. Did you expect them to win? Lots of us did, but no way any other team is going to win in India. Australia lost 9 wickets in the morning session of the third day and threw away a chance to tie the series setting up two exciting test matches. But, it was not to be. I will discuss the match, with some technical analysis, some fun banter, and some friendly slander, after all, how am I going to cater to the Aussies without sledging them?
It's All About Uzzy
Australia won yet another toss and Rohit Sharma lost yet another toss, he’s really taken up Virat Kohli’s captaincy style, hasn't he? Which includes losing tosses consistently.
David Warner and Usman Khawaja were welcomed by beaming bouncers by Shami and Siraj. Especially, Warner, there were multiple overs where Siraj relentlessly kept pitching the ball short and troubled Warner. One ball hit his arm, and he was in pain, physio came up and bandaged his arm up. A few balls later, one ball rose sharply and hit his helmet. While there were no signs of concussion at that moment, he was caught behind a few deliveries later, and later Cricket Australia confirmed that he had suffered a concussion and a hairline fracture on his arm and that he was ruled out of the series.
Whilst the Indians got rid of Labuschagne, Smith, and Head pretty quickly, Uzzy didn’t give in, and that was the sign of a masterful batsman. He built a 59-run partnership with Peter Handscomb and played some really good shots. He struck the right balance between the off and on-side and looked set for a big hundred. But Jadeja got the better of him and a good-looking knock that had potential ended at 81. But Uzzy ensured that Australia get a solid score after the mini-collapse in between.
The 100 Test Club
The latest addition to India’s 100-test club is Cheteshwar Pujara. Yes, the marathon man. The man who Aussies don’t like as much as they don’t like a hot bottle of beer. The man, the myth, the legend played his 100th test in Delhi as India looked to retain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy for the fourth consecutive time.
Sunil Gavaskar felicitated Pujara and gave him the special edition “100th test” cap, and wished him good luck to be the first Indian to score a century in his 100th test. But, Pujara’s test went a different way than he would’ve wanted. Lyon’s ball caught his pads off-guard and there was a huge appeal for an lbw, the umpire thought it was missing the stumps. Now Australia had already burnt two reviews, so they didn’t want to take a chance. A couple of minutes later, ball tracking showed three reds, if Australia would’ve taken the review, Pujara would’ve walked back on a 3-ball duck. Well, it didn’t matter because Lyon got him four balls later anyways.
Australia would’ve been thanking all the cricketing gods for getting Pujara out for a duck, because if he would’ve dug in, in his 100th test, then there was no way he was not going for a century.
Handscomb Does a Pujara
When Shami, Jadeja, and Ashwin were bundling everyone up, Handscomb stayed till the end and scored a mighty 72 off 142 deliveries. He trusted his defense against the spinners and backed himself to score runs in the off-side more and play with the spin. Really mature batting plus a defensive masterclass gave Handscomb a fighting chance against the terrific spells Indians bowled. And it showed, he was the second-highest run-scorer for Australia in the 1st innings and remained not out.
Shami Forgets Delhi is a Spinning Pitch
Mohammed Shami ended the innings being the highest wicket-taker for India with 4 wickets in 14.4 overs, though he was a tad bit expensive with an economy of 4.09. Both Ashwin and Jadeja took 3 wickets each with both bowling 21 overs.
Shami used the new ball and the morning conditions well. He got the better of David Warner and got him after a 50-run opening stand. He then got Travis Head who could’ve been very dangerous if he had gotten into his groove. Of course, there was no help for pace in the middle overs and naturally was not given enough overs. But after the spinners managed to get most of the batting lineup and when the ball had started reversing a bit, he got the tail pretty quickly by getting Lyon and Kuhnemann.
Ashwin and Jadeja were brilliant, they kept targeting the stumps relentlessly and kept asking questions. Handscomb and Khawaja batted well, but Uzzy had to go too. It looked as if no one could survive their onslaught. And their accuracy got the better of the Aussies as each grabbed a three-for. I won’t say the pitch didn’t help them, the pitch massively helped them and they wouldn’t have gotten so many wickets cheaply if not for the pitch, but it wasn’t a pitch where you struggle to score, you might not get a big score, but 30-40s were achievable, and the Aussies really didn’t bat well. They were bowled out for 263 with a few overs of play left on Day 1.
Kohli V Umpires
If you’ve watched Virat Kohli bat in the last 3 years, you have seen how many umpires calls and wrong decisions have gone against him. Delhi's first inning was no different. He was batting extremely well. He handled spin masterfully and carefully chose the deliveries he played and the deliveries he defended. It was an amazing 44, on par with Uzzy’s 81 in the first inning, he of course didn’t go on to score a 50+ score but he looked ominous and Aussies would’ve been thankful that he didn’t get a big score.
The umpire who gave Kohli out - Nitin Menon has had a very mediocre series. There were lots of decisions he gave that were overturned by the 3rd umpire. He hasn’t been very impressive over the last couple of years and it is staggering that ICC sticks with him for most international games in India. The umpiring in India has been below average and the BCCI and ICC have to do something about it. Because bogus umpiring ruins good games of cricket. And this unfair umpiring hasn’t been targeted towards one side, both sides are equal victims of some ridiculous decisions.
Axar is King
Media from both countries believed it was difficult for left-handers to bat on the Delhi pitch. First Usman Khawaja, and then Axar Patel proved them wrong. He walked in after Virat Kohli got out and India was in trouble at 135/6. Axar had a big responsibility to take India to a competitive score with India still trailing by 128 runs. Soon after Axar Patel walked in, KS Bharat got out and Ravi Ashwin walked in, two of them being the last proper batsmen for India.
Axar batted beautifully for more than 2 hours. He tackled a fired-up Nathan Lyon well and scored runs at a decent rate. Ashwin and Axar built a match-saving 114-run partnership. Murphy got Axar for 74 but it was a mighty good knock that took India to 262.
Sweep to Weep
Alright, let me give you a hypothetical. A team goes into their second innings on Day 3 with a 1-run lead, would you back them to win? Or at least put up a fight by setting a good target for the opposition to chase, well that team was Australia, and they neither batted well nor put up a fight.
Australia started beautifully on Day 2, they ended the day being 61/1 with Travis Head batting on 39 and Marnus Labuschagne batting on 16. They looked good, I was expecting them to bat the entirety of the 3rd day and give India 300+ to chase. But the entire Australian team decided that they are going to sweep every ball on Day 3. India bowled Australia out in the morning session of the 3rd day with a few overs still remaining! This was an unexpected twist this match had taken!
While Australia had managed to lose only 1 wicket for 61 runs on the second day, they lost 9 wickets for 52 runs the next morning and the Australian dressing room was in disbelief. What surprised everyone was their dedication to playing the sweep shot despite most of their batsmen getting out playing the sweep. Only 3 partnerships scored above 20 runs and only one above 40. Jadeja and Ashwin are just too good to not get breakthroughs when the batsmen are playing the same shot over and over again.
Ravindra Jadeja ended the inning with his career-best test figures of 7/42. Ashwin got 3 wickets too, but Jadeja was the main man who destroyed the Australian batting lineup on the third day. It is not exaggerating to say that Australia was in chaos, their newspapers, their journalists, and their cricket experts were all going beserks because of what had transpired in Delhi. Losing 9 wickets in 1 session is unheard of, and throwing away your chance to tie the series which all Australians want to win was even worse.
One Australian Newspaper read, “It is India’s world, we’re just living in it” as their headline for the horrific morning session of the third day. All India had to do to retain the Border-Gavaskar trophy for the fourth consecutive time was to chase down 115 runs in 8 sessions.
2 at Home, 2 Away, Perfectly Balanced, as all Things Should be
India sailed through to the target in the second session itself. Although they lost 4 wickets, it never looked as if they were going to collapse and give Australia the upper hand. So Pujara did get to take India to victory by batting till the end and giving us a 2-0 lead in the series.
India retained the Border Gavaskar Trophy for the 4th consecutive time. They had won 2 series at home, one in 2016-17 and the other this year. Impressively, they managed to win two consecutive series in Australia in 2018-19 and 2020-21. Now 2018 was the first time India had won a test series in Australia, they had always found it difficult to win a test series there because of how alien the conditions were, but the new Indian team, under Virat Kohli, had managed to do the impossible in 2019 and win the Border Gavaskar Trophy down under. Then, in 2021, with many players injured, captain Kohli going back home, against a full-strength Australian squad, Ajinkya Rahane led India to an unbelievable series win in Australia by knocking down Australia’s fortress - The Gabba at Brisbane.
This is a terrific achievement for a team like India, which struggled to win tests at home prior to 2014, forget overseas. We were a timid team, we were legitimately scared to go to England, Australia, and South Africa because of how alien and hostile the conditions were. And that team had a revolution, Virat Kohli as captain transformed the team and new players rose up and we had a team potent to win anywhere in the world. From getting dominated by the Aussies everywhere every time, we had dominated them 4 times in a row. And as an Indian, I couldn’t be prouder of this team.
Australia has to go back to Australia after another trophyless encounter with India. The Australian media and former cricketers believed that this was Australia’s best chance at winning the Border Gavaskar Trophy in India in a long time. And to be fair, it did look like Australia was a stronger team. India didn’t have Bumrah, India didn’t have Rishabh Pant and their top order except Rohit Sharma had struggled to get runs in test cricket in the last 3 years. But, India at home is just too strong, very few teams even have the ability to challenge them at home. I am not going to be that Indian and say that the pitches played no role in India winning, of course, they did. The pitches were prepared in a manner that benefitted India and weakened Australia’s batting. But it is also true that Australia didn’t play good cricket in the first two matches. Usman Khawaja and Peter Handscomb showed that it is possible to score runs in India if you trust your defense, most Australian batsmen didn’t, and 2-0 was the result.
Player Ratings
Australia
David Warner - 2/10
Usman Khawaja - 7/10
Marnus Labuschagne - 4/10
Steve Smith - 1/10
Matt Renshaw (concussion sub) - 1/10
Travis Head - 5/10
Peter Handscomb - 8/10
Alex Carey - 1/10
Pat Cummins (c ) - 6/10
Todd Murphy - 7/10
Nathan Lyon - 9/10
Matthew Kunhemann - 7/10
Pat Cummins Captaincy Rating - 6/10
The Australian team had a few good performances, they actually played really well throughout the match, but a freak hour on the 3rd morning cost them the chance to win this match. I think Usman Khawaja batted brilliantly in the first inning, and so did Peter Handscomb, but the others failed to score big. The bowling had improved from the first game, picking 3 spinners worked for them and they bowled well to restrict India to 262. Especially, Nathan Lyon took 7 wickets in the match and single-handedly brought down the Indian batting line-up. I think Pat Cummins captained the team well, nothing too special, but he did well to rotate the bowlers and bowl good spells to India which restricted the run flow and got wickets, but when the freak hour started when everyone began sweeping, surely there was a message to be sent to the batsmen in the middle that sweeping is clearly not working and they need to try something else to put up a fighting score for India to chase. This is where I believe Pat Cummins lacked and where he could’ve done better.
India
Rohit Sharma (c) - 5/10
KL Rahul - 4/10
Cheteshwar Pujara - 4/10
Virat Kohli - 7/10
Shreyas Iyer - 4/10
Ravindra Jadeja - 9/10
KS Bharat - 6/10
Axar Patel - 9/10
Ravichandran Ashwin - 8/10
Mohammed Shami - 10/10
Mohammed Siraj - 7/10
Rohit Sharma Captaincy Rating - 8/10
India was clinical with the ball, they let Australia build a few partnerships but you expect the opposition to fight back after losing the first match. They did good to restrict Australia to 263 but in my opinion, maybe there was a chance to bundle them up for 20-30 runs less. Here is where Rohit Sharma missed a trick or two. But India’s batting in the first inning was below average. Axar Patel saved the match because Australia was looking set to start their second inning with a hefty lead. They got to 260 because of a couple of extraordinary efforts. But, they absolutely changed the game on the third day when they inflicted a 9-wicket session which basically won them the game. And Rohit’s captaincy in the second inning was on point, he bowled the spinners well and rotated Ashwin and Jadeja well. Good fields that capitalized on Australia’s obsession with sweeps.
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