Lightning strikes again!
Pant and Gill lead India to a miraculous win
They say lightning doesn’t strike twice. Britannica says it’s a common phrase used by people to reassure someone that whatever bad thing has happened, won’t happen again. It’s not really true although it’s very very unlikely.
When India announced their squad for the Australia tour - India had a number of key members missing or unavailable. Australia, on the other hand, found Marnus Labuschagne and also added back Steve Smith and David Warner to their squad since the 2018/9 series. Due to their better bowling line-up, most experts predicted (and understandably so) that Australia will be the winner of this series.
Yet India competed. They turned up in Adelaide and were in the game throughout the first two days. India finished Day 2 effectively 61/1 in the 3rd innings of the game and had an opportunity to bat on arguably the best day of the match to set a big total for Australia. We all know what happened the next morning. Usually, in test cricket, an average batsman needs to play 10 shots where he is not in control to be dismissed. That morning, India was not in control 32 times and yet 9 wickets fell. On top of that, India lost its most experienced pacer due to injury.
It was as if India was struck by lightning. Surely this was going only one way.
At Melbourne, on the back of solid performances by newcomers (Mohammed Siraj, Shubman Gill), useful contributions from Ravindra Jadeja, Jasprit Bumrah and a top-class knock by Ajinkya Rahane - India managed to bounce back to 1-1. India had done their homework for Smith and Labuschagne and executed it well yet again. It wasn’t expected, but they managed the extraordinary.
Then the Indians arrived in Sydney. Another bowler down and now facing David Warner at the top of the order. Australia batted first and Smith finally fired. Probably for the first time in the series - Australia was consistently at an advantage. At the end of Day 3, Australia was ahead by 197 with just 2 wickets lost. Set a target of 407, India ended Day 4 with 8 wickets left and more than 300 behind.
In the past 4 years, India has lost 6 games chasing abroad. Similar to Sydney, we were in the hunt but always a bit behind the opposition. The scars of these defeats ran deep in the minds of most Indian fans. We had 4 fully fit batsmen who needed to bat out Day 5. Surely, this was going to be Birmingham / Southampton / Cape Town all over again. But the Indian team kept chasing. In fact, young Rishabh Pant was given the freedom to play his shots and with some luck, he got India to a point where some were actually entertaining thoughts of a win. India performed a miracle, it was too good to be true.
In the process of the miracle though, they lost all three of their remaining experienced bowlers. Australia started the 4th test with 1000+ wickets, the Indian attack had fewer test wickets than Marnus Labuschagne. The last time Australia faced an attack this inexperienced was all the way back in 1880. Also, this test was at the Gabba - a venue Australia hadn’t lost a test at since 1988.
Surely this was only going one way.
Indian fans had no expectations, neither did most commentators. Australia put up a 300+ score and reduced India to 186/6. Most people had resigned but Washington Sundar hadn’t. Shardul Thakur certainly hadn’t and we managed to reduce their lead to a mere 33. Australia was still in a comfortable position. While India kept trying to pick wickets, Australia extended their lead to over 300 before getting bowled out and were definite favorites to win.
The highest successful chase at the Gabba was 236, decades ago. India had used up their luck in Sydney, surely the odds were against a draw. But no one told Gill to think about the odds - he just went on batting the way. So did Pujara, braving every blow as Ashwin did at Sydney. The strategy was clear - bat carefully until lunch and make sure the chances of a loss are minimized - then start scoring freely.
Most Indian fans weren’t even thinking of a win, but this team was. Maybe they were trying to improve the chances of qualification for the Test Championship Final, maybe it was just self-belief. Pant wasn’t too bothered about the cracks. He didn’t care about the odd ones staying low.
Pant had only one aim - to keep scoring freely. If Lyon wasn’t going to let him hit over long-off, he was going to sweep him. Washington pulled Cummins for a six in a fashion that would make Kapil Dev proud.
Lightning did strike twice.