India dominated Australia in the four-match Test series. (AP)India won a Test series in Australia after 71 years to become only the fifth team to win a series down under. The fourth Test ended in a draw as rain played spoilsport on the last two days and allowed India to seal the victory by a margin of 2-1. A jubilant Ravi Shastri boldly declared that India’s triumph– their first-ever Down Under – is equal or bigger than the 1983 World Cup or 1985 World Championships win. Not only did India outplay their opponents but a more detailed analysis reveals that there was a greater disparity between the two teams.
For starters, India batsmen produced five centuries across four Tests, three of which came from Chesteshwar Pujara. The only other time India emulated such a feat was way back in 2003-04 when the ‘big four’- Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, and VVS Laxman hit five hundred between them.
On the other hand, Australian batsmen failed to prove their mettle with the bat. Their highest individual total came in the first innings of the final Test when Marcus Harris scored 79.
It was for the first time in over 130 years that no Australian batsman scored a ton in a Test series of comprising four matches at home. It was also for the first time that none of the Australian batsmen crossed 80 runs in all the four matches.
Comparing the top six of both the teams, India accumulated 1,547 runs at an average of almost 37, while Australia scored a total of 1129 runs, with the average coming less than 27 per batsman.
Another interesting stat reveals that the top six Indian batsmen spent an average time of over two hours at the crease, while the average time for the Aussie batsmen was less than 83 minutes.
After overpowering the hosts in the batting department, Indian bowlers also dominated the four-match Test series. The Indian premier bowlers returned with averages below 30 runs per wicket. Among the Aussie bowlers, only Pat Cummins could fall in the bracket of averages below 30 runs per wicket. Pat Cummins averaged 27.78 in the seven completed innings Australia bowled.
The Indian squad comprised 16 players throughout the series while Australia had only 13 members. This, in turn, helped India chose from a variety of options throughout the month-long series.
Virat Kohli has now been at the helm of captaincy for four years. Only once during this period, he has taken the same starting lineup into consecutive matches.
India squad: Virat Kohli (c), Murali Vijay, KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Hardik Pandya, Hanuma Vihari, Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant (wk), Parthiv Patel (wk), Ravi Ashwin, Ravi Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar
Australia squad: Tim Paine (c, wk), Josh Hazlewood (vc), Mitch Marsh (vc), Pat Cummins, Aaron Finch, Peter Handscomb, Marcus Harris, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Shaun Marsh, Peter Siddle, Mitchell Starc
