The importance of momentum

India will probably use tomorrow's fifth ODI at Eden Park as a chance to test its bench strength as part of the buildup to the 2011 World Cup. After all, the same policy has been applied in dead rubbers in recent past series. If this occurs, it could prove to be quite a mistake. With the exception of the matches against England, which was cut short anyway, India's ODI assignments in the last year have either come after the Test component of a tour, or were standalone tournaments.
This time however, India are really only half-way through the campaign.
The Tests are still to come, and India have not won a series in New Zealand for 41 years. New Zealand are palpably weak in the premier form of cricket, but all the pressure is on India, who are now expected to regularly win overseas despite failing to do so in the past. India currently have the momentum, and their batsmen would never have expected to do so well, especially after the insipid batting failures during the previous tour. Nor were New Zealand likely to have expected such a battering. As Daniel Vettori despondently mused after India sealed the series in Hamilton, perhaps 500 would not have been enough to withstand Virender Sehwag's assault.
India has never confronted the New Zealand bowlers in such a poor state on Kiwi territory. Given their past struggles in this part of the world, they are unlikely to have a better chance of a drought-breaking triumph in the near future. Now is not the time to cede their psychological gains by resting Virender Sehwag or another batsman, or allowing Rohit Sharma the opportunity to have extended batting practice tomorrow by elevating him up the order. Rohit and other young batsmen will have more chances after the T20 World Cup, when India play a bilateral series in the West Indies and tour Zimbabwe. This is particularly true for the latter engagement, which is likely to see the rotation policy used far more liberally. There is little that Rohit could gain in one match that could justify giving New Zealand's bowlers a chance to regain confidence before the Tests.
India must be ruthless and go for the jugular. On so many occasions, an aggressive and in-form batsman such as Adam Gilchrist has been able to demoralise a bowler to such an extent that their tail-end or out-of-form partners appear to be transformed into a much more formidable proposition. Question marks over the recent form of Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman remain, the latter's customary form against Australia not withstanding. India's ODI batsmen have New Zealand on the run, and now is not the time to allow them to settle before the Tests.
The likes of Anil Kumble and Sourav Ganguly never had the satisfaction of recording a Test triumph in New Zealand to their CV. Now that they have been selected, Dravid and Laxman do not deserve the same fate, especially the former, who stood out amid the chaos six years earlier and has done so much in the past to rectify India's abysmal touring history. Now that the boot is on the other foot, it should not be lifted mid-fight.

Haddin and Jordon

Following Brad Haddin's involvement in Neil Broom's controversial dismissal yesterday, it's time for a trip down memory lane to a similar and much more flagrant incident, which happened almost 40 years ago during Australia's 1969-70 tour of India. The tour stood out as Australia's only series win in India for 35 years, but was overshadowed by controversy and violence.

The First Test in Bombay had seen Australia take a first innings lead. The match was marred by a controversial umpiring decision on the fourth day when Srinivas Venkataraghavan was given out caught behind after missing the ball by roughly a foot, a decision that most of the Australians felt to be wrong. In the meantime, the public address system declared that Lawry and his men had cheated. It resulted in crowd rioting; The spectators lit fires and threw projectiles after Lawry refused to adjourn the match, contrary to police advice that warned them to run for their lives. During the chaos, Johnny Gleeson was hit in the head by a bottle, and when the teams left the field at the end of the Indian innings, Lawry was hit by a flying chair. Australia went on to win the match and more trouble came in the Fourth Test at Eden Gardens.

A surge in the demand for tickets caused a last day stampede, which resulted in running battles between fans and police, leaving six dead and hundred injured. This was exacerbated by protests by the Communist Party of India (CPI), a major political party in West Bengal, against Doug Walters. Walters had been conscripted during the Vietnam War, although he was never sent to Vietnam to fight against the CPI's Vietcong brethen. Nevertheless, CPI activists erected posters across the city claiming that Walters was a killer and around 10,000 communists picketed the Australian hotel and some eventually broke in and vandalised it.

On the field, there were more riots following an Indian batting collapse. Spectators on the top deck of the stands threw rocks onto those below, prompting those in the lower positions to invade the playing arena. This interrupted Australia's successful run-chase. During the stoppage, Lawry had an on-field altercation with a local photographer who had run onto the ground, pushing the pressman away with his bat. The Indian newspapers reported that Lawry had knocked the man over and then hit him. Lawry and his batting partner Keith Stackpole claimed that he had tried to shepherd the photographer from the playing area, who then stumbled and fell. In any case, the crowd responded by stoning the Australian bus as they left the ground following their victory, having taken an unassailable 2-1 series lead. Following the incident, the Indian media began to wear black armbands.

Thus to the wicket-keeping incident, which occurred in the following match against South Zone at Bangalore.

Alan Connolly was bowling medium pace off-cutters to Indian off spinner Erapalli Prasanna, with Australia's reserve wicketkeeper Ray Jordon standing up to the stumps. Prasanna heaved at one of the deliveries, and after an apparently long delay, the bails fell to the ground.

Jordon claimed that Connolly had bowled Prasanna. Prasanna disagreed and stood his ground, and the umpires and other players were not offering an opinion one way or the other. However, Prasanna eventually walked after Jordon repeatedly insisted that he was out.

According to Ashley Mallett, the ball appeared to go down the leg side and then the leg stump pushed forward! Ian Chappell reported in one of his books, Long Hops and Larrikins, that Doug Walters had informed him that the ball had missed the stumps by a notable margin, bounced off Jordon's pads and back onto the stumps, with Prasanna's leg firmly rooted behind the line.

The Australians then had an altercation in the dressing room after some members, foremost among them Chappell, accused Jordon of cheating. Chappell (SA) reported that Jordon (VIC) accused him of being accustomed to cheating because it was a natural trait of South Australians to do so, further inflaming tensions among the tourists. (South Australia and Victoria are the two main states in Australia where Australian rules football dominates. Queensland and New South Wales prefer to play rugby. This has led to a rather bitter feeling of rivalry between a large proportion of sports oriented people from both pairs of states, especially magnified by the state of origin games, particularly among South Australians who feel that the more populous Victoria has undue influence and carriest itself in an arrogant manner.)

Nevertheless, such interstate tensions are always close to the surface, even if in a light-hearted manner. Mallett (SA) spoke at a recent cricket conference held in Adelaide during this season's Test match. The issue of India came up as the Mumbai bombings had occurred overnight. This was especially ironic as the convenor of the conference had made a speech the day before about Caucasian cricket nations being paranoid about safety in Asia. In any case, the tumultuous events of the 1969-70 tour came up in comparison to the terrorist bombings and Mallett was talking about notorious and successful appeal for caught behind against Venkat in the First Test in Bombay, alleging that the only Australians who appealed were "all Victorian"!

Eventually, nothing further came of the incident, after Bill Lawry stepped in and stopped the fighting. Jordon can count himself lucky that there was no meaningful television coverage of the event, let alone slow motion replays. If a replay of the incident had occurred on the giant screen at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, a large scale pitch invasion and attack on the players would have been almost inevitable, given the controversy and tumult that surrounded Australia's campaign. Aside from that, Jordon would probably have faced a ban for (flagrantly) dishonest conduct, if his career had not already been terminated by broken limbs from mob justice.

However, a week later, Mallett reported to Chappell that Jordon had been sleeptalking and apologising about his illegitimate intervention in Prasanna's dismissal.

The latest incident is another reason for the increasing use of technology. In recent ICC trials of the challenge and referral system, there was a notable decline in the amount of nonsensical and pot luck appeals, which would indicate that not all appeals are spontaneous, nor are their magnitude. At the very least, it would prevent dubious decisions such as in Sydney last year or yesterday, that have the ability to inflame tensions across society. Whether Haddin engaged in foul play or not may be hard to ascertain, but at least naked dishonesty in the manner of Jordon is no longer possible. Hopefully in future, such incidents become rarer yet.

A glorious burden for Harbhajan?

When India and England take to the field for the First Test in Chennai, it will be the first time in five years that Harbhajan Singh starts a series as India’s first-choice spinner. No longer will he be bowling in tandem with Anil Kumble. After five years of mixed results that have fuelled speculation that he was in decline, the responsibility of leading the spin attack may just be the catalyst for India’s most successful off-spinner to return to his peak.

Harbhajan appears to thrive on the burden of leading the attack. In matches where he has played with Kumble, he averages 32. When Kumble has been absent, Harbhajan averages 26.1, substantially less. This becomes more marked when India has resorted to playing five bowlers, as it did in Faisalabad, Mohali and Mumbai in 2006, and in Adelaide and Ahmedabad in 2008. During these matches, Harbhajan bowled listlessly, with no apparent sense of purpose, taking 11 wickets at 59.5. Only Irfan Pathan averages worse when India has fielded five bowlers. In the Adelaide Test, he was outbowled by Sehwag. Harbhajan looked irrelevant as Ricky Ponting-of all people-dominated him and broke his hoodoo with a century. It was as though the surfeit of bowlers made him feel unrequired and irrelevant. In Faisalabad, he was plundered for 178 runs, ending the series with 0/355.

Never one to reject an opportunity to return fire, Harbhajan has a long history of performing well when he is surrounded by conflict and chaos. Like the fiery Australian tennis player Lleyton Hewitt, it seems to fire him up for the task ahead. He rarely fails to respond to engage his opponents in the media, even after he was told by the BCCI to stop commenting on last season’s tour of Australia.

One could be forgiven for thinking that he deliberately seeks confrontation and controversy to create a siege mentality for his own competitive advantage. Others are more cynical. Speaking at a recent cricket forum, former Australian off spinner Ashley Mallett claimed that Harbhajan courted controversy in order to deflect attention from his bowling action.

Harbhajan’s greatest triumph came when he was on the verge of giving up cricket. In 2000, his fledgling career, already beset by allegations of chucking, appeared in tatters when he was expelled from the National Cricket Academy for disciplinary reasons. When his father died, Harbhajan, the only son, contemplated moving to the United States to drive trucks to support his mother and unmarried sisters. Various other slow men were paired with Kumble and Harbhajan appeared well out of favour.

When Kumble succumbed to injury, the similarly belligerent Sourav Ganguly called for Harbhajan’s recall. The selectors obliged and Ganguly was amply rewarded when his hitherto out-of-favour Sikh warrior famously spun India to a series victory over Australia in early 2001. He took 32 wickets when none of his teammates took more than three as India came back from 1-0 down and being forced to follow on to end Australia’s world record run of 16 consecutive Test wins. Fittingly, he hit the winning runs after a late stumble in the deciding Test.

It was always going to difficult to repeat such results and so it proved. In 2003, after playing through a finger injury for an extended period, Harbhajan was sent home from the tour of Australia for surgery after an ineffective First Test.

In late-2004, he returned amid much speculation and promptly took a ten-wicket haul in his first Test back against Australia in Bangalore. With India 1-0 down, the pitch for the Third Test in Nagpur was an uncharacteristic greentop, the result of payback for internal BCCI squabbling. Ganguly and Harbhajan both withdrew at late notice, officially on grounds of injury and illness, but many alleged that it was grass induced and roundly condemned them. India plummeted to defeat by 342 runs and its first home Test series defeat to Australia in 35 years. Harbhajan then roared back for the final Test in Mumbai and spun India to victory with 5/29 as Australia fell for 93. He then took nine wickets to be man-of-the-match against South Africa at Eden Gardens soon after.

Harbhajan then quietly made his way through the next year with moderate results until the Ganguly-Chappell spat exploded in late-2005 and Indian cricket went into open warfare. Always one to defend his allies, Harbhajan accused Chappell of instilling fear and insecurity into the team. Ganguly was shunted out of the team, and Harbhajan appeared to be on thin ice after being gagged. Rumours abounded that Chappell was planning for Harbhajan to follow his Dada out the door. Harbhajan promptly responded by engineering a win at the next ODI in Nagpur and was India’s most economical bowler for consecutive ODI series. He then took match-winning ten-wicket haul in the Ahmedabad Test, ending the year strongly after a weak start.

After losing form and being dropped, Harbhajan was recalled in late-2007, and put in mediocre performances against Pakistan and Australia. Then came the racism controversy with Andrew Symonds (pictured), followed by a media run-in with Matthew Hayden. His subsequent ODI performances in Australia were relatively good compared to his barren record in the country. In both finals matches, Symonds and Hayden were regaining the ascendancy for Australia after a top-order collapse. On both occasions, Harbhajan had a hand in dismissing the pair of them in quick succession, which went a long way towards securing India’s wins.

Harbahajan was again in the headlines after slapping Sreesanth and receiving a lengthy ban. When he returned, he was India’s leading wicket-taker in Sri Lanka. In a year when he has been the most sanctioned Indian cricketer, he is also India’s leading Test wicket-taker and the second highest from all countries.

Kumble’s departure will also mean that Harbhajan will now play under the captaincy of MS Dhoni. In three matches under Dhoni’s captaincy, he has taken 19 wickets at 18.42 and all the matches were won. Under Ganguly, he claimed 177 wickets at 26.84 in 37 Tests. However, with Kumble and Dravid at the helm, Harbhajan averaged around 3.5 wickets per Test at an average over 40. Perhaps he is unable to perform at his best when led by placid leaders with a worldview so starkly different.

Kumble’s retirement could be a blessing for Harbhajan. In recent years, India’s improved away record in the 21st century was in large part due to Kumble’s increased overseas effectiveness in the latter half of his career. Harbhajan is now in the middle of his career and averaging around 40 away from home, which is not a good portent for India’s overseas ambitions, where it needs to win more consistently if it wants to vie for world dominance. His record in Pakistan stands at 0/355 and he
will doubtless want to rectify that next month. If the burden of responsibility takes hold again, Harbhajan too can rise to another level. If he does, then India’s post-Kumble future looks promising. Chennai is one of his favourite hunting grounds
and an ideal place to start this next phase of his career.

A captain’s legacy

How Sourav Ganguly’s turbulent career fashioned a new Team India

This article was written by the author for Mint at the attached link

For Sourav Ganguly, the final Nagpur Test against Australia was not only a chance to go out of the scene with a series win, but an opportunity to exorcise some demons.

Four years earlier, the old stadium was the scene of a debacle that started Ganguly’s inglorious fall from the captaincy and plunged Indian cricket into four years of indifferent performance. Trailing 0-1 after two Tests against Australia, India arrived to see a greentop, reputedly a payback from the Vidarbha Cricket Association to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for a lost political battle.

Ganguly mysteriously withdrew from the Test at late notice, with cynics contending that he had run away to avoid defeat. Amid the chaos, India ceded the Border-Gavaskar Trophy with a crushing 342-run loss.

In 2005, India squandered the Test series against Pakistan with an insipid last-day collapse. Ganguly was then banned for slow over rates. With India struggling, Ganguly’s fading batsmanship came under scrutiny.

Then, Greg Chappell became coach. Struggling for runs, Ganguly privately asked him for a frank opinion. Told that his form did not merit selection, Ganguly angrily went public. The dispute turned into a soap opera encompassing leaked emails, orchestrated peace summits, riots and gag orders. Ganguly was humiliatingly stripped of the captaincy and dropped.

In a little more than a year, the verdict on Ganguly’s legacy had savagely turned. Ganguly became widely reviled and ridiculed. Amid the political machinations and a downturn in performance, his contributions to Indian cricket and his record 21 Test wins were forgotten.

Ganguly had taken the reins of the Indian team in the 2000 season after a ruinous match fixing scandal and five consecutive Test defeats. In his first season in control, India ended Australia’s famed run of 16 consecutive wins after being forced to follow on in the epic Eden Gardens Test in Kolkata. Against the odds, they won the series, primarily due to Ganguly protégé Harbhajan Singh, who had been resuscitated from disciplinary oblivion at the captain’s behest.

Ganguly then led India to the 2003 World Cup final, before overseeing a drawn series in Australia and a triumph over Pakistan. This yielded India’s first Test win in Australia for 22 years. The latter was India’s first series win in Pakistan.

Such results were symptomatic of Ganguly’s captaincy, which saw significant improvement in India’s away record. He instilled backbone into his troops, and India was no longer seen as a soft team that spontaneously unravelled amid alien conditions. This was typified by a stirring win at Headingley, England, in 2002, when Ganguly elected to bat on a greentop and declined the light so that he could force a result.

However, Ganguly’s fighting spirit was based not on cold ruthlessness and efficiency, but a mix of belligerence and brinkmanship in the mould of Sri Lanka’s Arjuna Ranatunga. He preferred angry young men, such as Harbhajan and Yuvraj Singh. Instead of trying to emulate and surpass rival pacesetters, he attempted to take them down through an attitude of defiance. This was exhibited in his testy rivalry with Steve Waugh, and his infamous shirt take-off at Lord’s.

When one is in decline, the limitations of such an approach tend to be magnified to such an extent that it appears grotesque, even ridiculous. Ganguly’s disregard for rational planning and attention to detail in favour of hairy-chested confrontation began to bite. Weighed down by inept fielding and fitness, an ageing ODI team was exposed.

Coupled with the intrigue that perpetually surrounds BCCI, Ganguly’s legacy was battered, dogged by accusations that he was destroying Indian cricket with a “divide and rule” strategy. Never one to accept defeat, Ganguly dug in. A year later, the youngsters fell upon hard times and Ganguly was resuscitated. He batted with a productivity not seen for years. Against Pakistan, he scored a century and double century to be named man of the series.

After India lost in Sri Lanka in August, rumblings about the seniors resurfaced. Ganguly appeared to be gone, but was retained for the Australia series. Prior to the first Test, he parried suggestions that the seniors were being forced out. As the journalists finished, Ganguly said: “Just one last thing...this is going to be my last series. I’ve decided to quit...hopefully we’ll go on a winning note.” Needless to say, it wasn’t the last theatrical twist in his career.

Ganguly was then quoted as saying that “every Tom, Dick and Harry is playing in the team...some…have changed their hairstyle more than they have scored”. Was he referring to Mahendra Singh Dhoni?

Despite the distractions, Ganguly batted productively, with a poise and serenity that belied the pressure on his position. His most influential contributions came in partnership with new captain Dhoni, whose batting had also been questioned, in the two victorious Tests, helping to consolidate India’s position.

Towards the end of the final Test, Dhoni allowed Ganguly to marshal the troops for one last time. Harbhajan winkled out the winning wicket, LBW without offering a shot, the exact same ending to Ganguly’s most famous triumph at Eden Gardens seven years ago. The passing of the torch was a fairy tale finish for Ganguly, as though the rumblings in between had never happened.

As Ganguly heads into retirement on a high, Dhoni’s India has the chance to vie for supremacy. The series was largely won by younger players who display the attitude that Ganguly brought to the 21st century India, more confident of its place in the world.

Gautam Gambhir, Ishant Sharma, Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan, the most prominent figures in India’s triumph, rattled Australia with bat and ball and attitude. They exhibited a Gangulyesque style of overt and primal aggression. Such an unsubtle style is limiting, not least through bans and fines.

Despite these limitations, Ganguly did what was needed at the time—galvanizing an uncertain group of skilful cricketers, giving them a sense of purpose that enabled them to fight outside their comfort zone and in foreign lands. Now that a foundation exists, a more sophisticated approach is needed for further progress. India will hope that Dhoni can channel the Ganguly-instilled fight in a more refined manner.

The Final Frontier: Not as elusive as it seems

35 years without a win is a long time in sport. After Bill Lawry’s team conquered India 3-1 in 1969-70, Australia had to wait until late-2004 when Adam Gilchrist’s men broke the drought and conquered what Steve Waugh termed the “Final Frontier” with a 2-1 win.

These two statistics are well known to most watchers of Australian cricket, and are often cited to illustrate the difficulty of conquering the subcontinent. From the sheer magnitude of the timescale, it’s easy to feel that some kind of Herculean team and performance is required to win. After all, it’s unfathomable to comprehend Australia or England not winning an Ashes series on foreign soil for over three decades.

However, the irregular scheduling of Test matches in yesteryear has caused a statistical imbalance of matches that has falsely magnified Australia’s inability to win in India. Whereas the Future Tours Programme now stipulates that every country should play a home and away series against every other team in a cycle of five years, this has not always been the case.

In the 35 years between Lawry and Gilchrist, Australia played only 16 Tests in India. In the last 36 years, Australia have played 55 Tests on English soil, yielding four times as many opportunities withing the same timespan. Going 18 Tests without a series win is what happened on the Australian campaigns of England in 1977, 1980, 1981 and 1985. When Allan Border’s men won in 1989, 14 years after Australia’s last series win in the Old Dart, the triumph was not regarded as one that had transcended generations of struggle, unlike the Final Frontier of India. The Final Frontier defied Australia for two fewer Tests, but the fact that the 16 Tests were spread over an extra 21 years made the drought appear rather paleolithic.

The statistical count of Australia’s performances in the 16 Tests-two wins and seven losses-paints a misleadingly poor picture of Australia’s ability in India. Since Lawry’s conquest, Australia toured India five times until it won again, in 1979-80, 1986-87, 1996 (a one-off Test), 1997-98 and 2000-01. Only in the last decade has Australia toured regularly. Prior to that, they toured twice in 27 years, and those two sides were in no way representative of that period of Australian cricket.

From January 1971, when Ian Chappell became captain, until 1984-85, when Allan Border was thrust into the top job amid Kim Hughes’ tearful resignation, Australian cricket was generally in two disparate modes. Under the leadership of the Chappell brothers, Australia was successful, but when they were absent, the green and gold were regularly blown away.

After suffering a loss in his first Test as captain-the last match of the 1970-71 Ashes-Ian Chappell ensured that Australia never lost a series under his watch. After five years at the helm, Chappell handed the reins to his younger brother, having recorded three wins for every defeat and re-established Australia as the premier team in world cricket.

Greg Chappell continued where his elder brother left off, crushing the West Indies 5-1 on home soil in 1975-76. Australia continued to win more than it lost, before the wheels came off amid the most dramatic upheaval in the history of modern cricket. Long-simmering resentment over meagre renumerations resulted in the majority of the Australian team signing with Kerry Packer’s rebel World Series Cricket. The news broke during the 1977 tour of England, breaking the team into loyalist and rebel factions. Clashes between the players and management reportedly bordered on violence and it was announced that the WSC players would be banned.

With almost all of their first-choice players gone, Australia drafted the 41-year-old and retired Bob Simpson to lead the team against an Indian touring side untouched by WSC. India had previously played nine Tests on Australia soil, losing eight and never tasting victory. The depleted Australians managed only to scrape home 3-2, an ample demonstration of how badly the defections had bitten. The hosts were lucky to avoid a 5-0 whitewash, winning their matches by two wickets and 16 and 47 runs respectively, while India’s wins comprehensively secured by 222 runs and an innings respectively.

The Australians were soon exposed, however, losing eight of their next 13 Tests. During this time, Simpson was replaced by Graham Yallop and then Kim Hughes. Hughes then took Australia on a six-Test tour of India, their first since Lawry’s triumph ten years earlier. Australia rarely troubled the hosts and were flattered by a 2-0 loss, cushioned by rain-affected draws. It was part of a 19-Test run that yielded only three wins.

Immediately afterwards, the WSC players resumed their places in a reunified Test team following a rapprochement. Highlighting the weakness of the establishment team, only four of Hughes’ Indian tourists pulled on the baggy green during the summer. Under the younger Chappell, Australia again won more Tests than it lost, but when Hughes led the team during Chappell’s self-imposed breaks, the situation was reversed. Hughes had the worst winning percentage among Australian captains who have led for more than six matches, winning only four from 28.

At the end of the 1983-84 season, Chappell, Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh all retired. Australia had lost the world-record holders for most Test wickets and wicket-keeping dismissals, and its finest batsman. Thereafter, Australia went on a unprecedented barren run, playing eight series without success, totalling 33 Tests with only three wins and 14 losses. Nine of the defeats were dreadful maulings by an innings or ten wickets. It was without doubt the weakest side in Australian history.

In 1985-86, amidst the calamitous run, Australia were exceedingly lucky to deny India a maiden series win in Australia. The tourists took first innings leads of over 130 in each of the three Tests; in the Second Test, rain curtailed the final day’s play with India 67 runs from victory. In the Third Test, Australia were six down and still in the red when time ran out, having being forced to follow on.

The following year, the much-maligned Australians toured India. Border’s nondescript men took an 147-run first innings lead in Madras, but were unable to ram home the advantage, and the match ended with the second tie in Test history. The series remained deadlocked 0-0 after a washout and a dead pitch in the last two Tests.

After this, Australia did not play another Test in India for ten years, when Mark Taylor’s side lost a one-off match in late-1996 to inaugurate the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. During this period, Simpson became Australia’s coach and they broke through to win the 1987 World Cup. The Test team gradually improved, and after winning 4-0 in England in 1989, they became consistently successful once more, vying with the West Indies for supremacy before regaining the Frank Worrell Trophy in 1995.

Thus, in the 27 years after Lawry, Australia were usually in the top two or three countries except the two years of WSC, and roughly six years following the triple retirements of Chappell, Marsh and Lillee, when they were shambolic amid extreme circumstances. But the two tours of India during this time coincided with these two dark periods, being entirely unrepresentative of Australian cricket over this period. From 1970 until the mid-1980s, Australia’s most prominent players were the Chappells, Marsh, Lillee, Jeff Thomson and Allan Border. All bar Thomson are inductees of the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame. However, due to the WSC interregnum and the mass retirements in the early 1980s, only Border toured India at all from 1970 to 1987. Imagine a team without its two best pacemen, two best batsmen and wicket-keeper. Imagine how Australia would have done in India without McGrath, Gillespie, Gilchrist, Hayden and Steve Waugh. As this year’s comprehensive 0-2 defeat showed, they would probably have been beaten comprehensively.

Since then, Australia has played in India with teams more representative of its general strength. In 1998, Taylor’s men returned to India as the world’s leading team. However, they were met by Sachin Tendulkar, who was at the peak of his powers and comprehensively dismantled Warne.

Australia took a 71-run first innings lead in the First Test in Chennai, before Tendulkar bludgeoned an unbeaten 155 in the second innings to leave the tourists looking to survive on the final day. Hindered by several umpiring decisions that prompted Wisden to say “three decisions were harsh and the fourth dubious”, Australia fell to a 179-run defeat. The hosts then sealed the series by slaughtering Australia by an innings at Eden Gardens. They amassed 5/633 while Australia managed only 414 in two innings. Australia then took the final Test by eight wickets. Tendulkar scored 446 runs at 111.50 in leading the way for the hosts. The loss was Australia’s only series defeat under the five years of Mark Taylor’s captaincy, aside from a 1-0 defeat in Pakistan when Australia lost by a single wicket.

Australia returned in 2001, confident that it could conquer the Final Frontier. Steve Waugh had developed Taylor’s world-leading team into a ruthless unit that had secured 15 consecutive Test victories. Anticipation was rife that this would be Australia’s breakthrough. They extended their run to 16 with a crushing 10-wicket win in the First Test in Mumbai. When they took a 274-run first innings lead and enforced the follow-on after India had insipidly folded for 171, it appeared that the Final Frontier would collapse in a landslide. However, VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid batted for the entirety of the fourth day in a legendary partnership of 376, before Harbhajan Singh bowled India to a dramatic final-day win. It was only the third time that a team had won a Test after being forced to follow-on. Heading into the Third Test in Chennai, Australia were in a good position at 3/340 before Harbhajan terminated the innings at 391. India then took a 110-run lead and required 155 for victory in the final chase. After a late collapse, they stumbled home by two wickets, with Harbhajan striking the winning runs.

Victory was so close yet felt so far away. Taylor and Waugh presided over times of plenty for Australia, but were never to win in India. That the loss in India stood out among their multitude of wins elsewhere magnified the aura of elusiveness. When juxtaposed with Australia’s other victories, it had everyone concluding that to win in India required performances that transcended generations.

But they were highly competitive and had their chances in all but the Calcutta slaughter of 1998. In 1998, Tendulkar played a dominant role, and in 2001, Harbhajan took 32 wickets at 17, series-winning performances that can rarely be repeated. Coupled with Laxman and Dravid’s once-in-a-generation partnership, Harbhajan ensured that Australia lost a match that was seemingly unloseable. Without it, Australia could conceivably have swept the series 3-0. How many other times has a team won a Test series when their second most successful bowler has collected only three wickets? How many times can a team score in such a manner on a fourth day Calcutta turner? It was a truly remarkable Indian performance that denied Australia for three more years.

Yet Australia had won 3-0 at home just over a year earlier. This disparity between the scorelines exacerbated the impression that winning in India was like a sprinter trying to win on Alpe d’Huez or Asafa Powell running in a marathon. However, had Australia scored just 20 more runs in Chennai in 2001, it could have been 2-1 and the perception would be vividly different.

The breakthrough finally came in 2004-05. After easily winning the First Test by 217 runs, Australia were on the back foot in the Second Test in Chennai. India needed 229 to level the series, but a monsoonal downpour washed out the final day. After Sourav Ganguly mysteriously withdrew prior to the Third Test, the leaderless Indians were crushed by 342 runs and Gilchrist had conquered the Final Frontier.

Although 35 years appears an eternity, the breakthrough came after four series defeats, which in regular scheduling would occur across a 16 year period. Of these failures, the first was primarily due to the decimation of WSC, while the second was during a genuinely bleak period following a generational changeover. A quarter century of players never had a meaningful chance to conquer India. It was only 28 years after Lawry that Australia had their next real chance in a full series, and after two narrow series losses, they broke through. Under Ian or Greg Chappell, or Allan Border in the early 1990s, Australia would have mounted a strong challenge, but these men never had an opportunity. Given the amount invested into computer analysis in modern cricket, it’s astounding that so many people imagine an Australian victory in India as an Everest. While the players have a motivation to do this in order to colour their performance in a brighter light, it is hard to comprehend how independent commentators can come to the same conclusion.

And so to this year’s tour, which Australia lost 0-2. After appearing set for substantial lead in the First Test in Bangalore, some stubborn rearguard batting saw India to safety with relative ease. Apart from that, Australia rarely looked like getting the necessary 20 wickets for any reasonable cost needed for victory. This has led to substantial fears about Australia’s future prospects.

In the aftermath, many have optimistically pointed to the fact that Australia went 35 years without winning in India, so therefore it is no disgrace for Ponting’s men. These people point to the case of Steve Waugh, who otherwise reigned over a period of domination that was unprecedented in the history of cricket. The loss in India was a mere interruption in this domination, so they argue that other losses will be similarly anomalous. The observation about Waugh is correct, but his team was highly competitive. Australia only had four series in India during the winless period. Taylor’s men were competitive, and Waugh was not far from whitewashing India had things gone his way, before Gilchrist broke through. Ponting’s campaign resembled 1979-80 and 1986-87 in that Australia struggled to find any openings. As Hughes’ team were depleted by defections, the only time Australia looked so placid in India was during the nadir of the mid-1980s.

It’s incorrect to disregard the result as anomaly due to the disparity in playing conditions, as during this period, Australia struggled to beat touring Indian sides notorious for their utter impotence on foreign soil. The WSC-depleted team won 3-2 in Australia, but all three wins were nailbiters, while the two Indian triumphs were comprehensive. The two series in the 1980s were both drawn, with India having substantially the better of the play in the latter.

This doesn’t mean that Australia will hit rock bottom like the mid-1980s, as India are a lot stronger than they were in the 1980s and beating them is more difficult. But it does show that results in India aren’t as much of an outlier as is commonly presumed. Being competitive and winning in India has been a real prospect for any good Australian team, and had every good Australian team had a chance to play in India, the Final Frontier would not have lasted 35 years.