Indian players meet Australia Prime Minister Scott Morrison at his official residence, the Kirribilli House, in Sydney on New Year’s Day. (Twitter/PTI)With its grand central harbour and the wild celebrations of a year just departed, Sydney has the feel of a city of departures and farewells for touring cricket teams.
Often the last stop of a dead rubber, the city has historically denoted a painful journey’s end. So rather than feeling regaled by the dazzling fireworks on New Year’s Eve or marvelling at the magnificent beaches, they latch themselves in hotel rooms, brooding over their failures and future.
But for the Indians, the vicinity of a historic milestone would make them soak in the grandeur around them, when everything will sound sweeter and look grander. A few of the younger players went out to the harbour to watch the streaming flames inking the sky in plumes of pink and purple. Some others visited the iconic Opera House, reflecting their joyous mood. Not that the year gone by was one of sheer rejoicing — there were moments of regret and despair — but the New Year has cracked with a lustrous hope. They could be forever remembered as the first Indians to win a series in Australia, and firsts are always special.
There’s a sense of momentousness about the moment, on how it could be the biggest match of their lives, their defining legacy. It’s a multi-layered narrative. Retaining the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, as if it’s not creditable enough, is only a subtext, which Kohli mentioned during the presentation ceremony in Melbourne. To him, sweet as the MCG win, it would mean nothing, if they don’t win the series, which could be Kohli’s first outside Asia and the Americas.
Members of Indian cricket team along with Australian counterparts, led by Tim Paine were hosted by Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison at his official residence,The pursuit has been long and tedious, one that began exactly a year ago in drought-ridden Cape Town, where he outlined his ambitions of world conquest. A year and several journeys later, his dreams remain as unfulfilled as it has been elusive. There’ve been close affairs, like in South Africa and England, where they showed redoubtable fight and skills, but never quite the degree of cutting edge or excellence to pocket the series, vindicated by the fact that they never came to the last match of a series with the rubber alive. But the Australia series has been different, where they demonstrated substantial wherewithal to fight back from the Perth defeat, from where they could have easily unravelled.
Sydney could be where Kohli’s men stamp their legacy, where they’d uninhibitedly declare themselves as the world’s best team, not by virtue of accumulating points, but by the dint of winning a series away from home, which has been a difficult proposition this decade. Take the case of India and Australia themselves, since the latter’s series win in 2004 in India, the trophy has always remained with the home team. Or for that matter, the Ashes in the last eight years.
There’s also a now-or-never corollary, for Australia is at their weakest since the Packer era. In three months, their outlawed cricketers would return, there are suggestions of overhaul and system cleansing, and they could re-emerge like they always have. Besides, it’s the prime of several Indian cricketers. It was the same feeling when Sourav Ganguly’s men came to Sydney with the series level 1-1.
Australia were missing their two main bowlers, Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne, the Invincibles were ageing – the greatest of them played his farewell match – and most of them were not around when the Indians visited them four years later. Ganguly’s batting luminaries were at their peak, their lead spinner Anil Kumble cracked the overseas bowling code and there was resounding belief that it could be his tryst-with-destiny moment.
Baggage of regret and reproach
Instead, they flew out of Sydney with a baggage of regret and reproach. Even now, they look back at that with an profuse shade of what-if. If only India had declared earlier, if only Parthiv Patel clung onto a catch or stumping, if only Steve Bucknor wasn’t harsh. Even 14 years later, we discuss and debate the match. And those were the days when even a draw in Australia was considered honourable.
Less so, in this milieu when India aren’t the hopeless travellers of the past. The odd Test win that masks over series defeats no longer muses the audience. India has ridden over that phase. None more revealing a number as Kohli’s eight wins outside Asia in his career: two came in this series, and four this year. Sachin Tendulkar, for all his matches played and achievements recorded, won only nine. Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman lead the list for India with 13. And Kohli has more miles left in his career to surpass them. It catalogues how India has, over the years, supplemented its financial and administrative sway with cricketing comeuppance.
An away series win, irrespective of how dented the Australians are, would bestow them the aura like no other Indian team in the past. For the reason that India has never won a series in Australia, from the time Lala Amarnath’s motley crew, two months after the nation was born, embarked at Fremantle Port to Kohli’s men at the edge of history.
Conversely, since the time Don Bradman and his Invincibles hosted a rag-tag Indian side, no other Australian skipper has been at the precipice of losing a Test series at home. Such a result is harsh on Tim Paine, having to steer Australia through the choppiest waters they have ever waded. There are other concerns ratcheting up, like the scrutiny on bowlers not procuring reverse swing as much as they had in the past – with rabid undertones that the Cape Town sandpaper scrubbing was not a case in isolation – or the drought of quality batsmen from what once was a fountain of stroke-makers.
So as much historic as this Test could be for Kohli, Sydney could be the last port of redemption for Paine. The outrage and recrimination if they concede the series will be merciless. History would judge him remorselessly, as they did Kim Hughes. Not that he hasn’t tried hard enough, but with the men at his disposal, he can do little but pray for luck to align. It’s hard to think of a weaker Australian batting line-up this century, Justin Langer admitted as much. “Try being a selector at the moment. We’ve got to be careful not to reward poor performances, but it’s not as if the guys are absolutely banging the door down. Most of our batters knocking on the door are averaging in the 30s (in the Sheffield Shield).” That only Usman Khawaja has scored a hundred since the Cape Town Test is a damning revelation of Australia’s batting crisis.
Compounding their woes, their famed bowling quartet has shone only sporadically. Pat Cummins and Nathan Lyon have been exceptions, but Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc have been woefully out of their range. But on the bowlers’s shoulders rest the best prospects of salvaging the series. And for once, Sydney could denote the end of a painful journey for the hosts rather than the visitors.
