Virat Kohli’s century in Perth does not automatically mean he has escaped a five-year slump in Test cricket. (Getty Images: Paul Kane)
After a few days of Test cricket, everything changed so quickly.
After India’s thorough drubbing of Australia in Perth, every day brought a premature obituary for the home team.
Pat Cummins has lost his spark, Marnus Labuschagne is no longer a Test player and Australia is a lost cause. All the hot topics have been forgotten to some extent.
Reports of Australia’s defeat have proven to be greatly exaggerated and now we head to Brisbane for a one-match series.
After the Adelaide Test, Indian commentator Harsha Bhogle compared the five-match series between cricket’s two giants to a five-innings battle at a Grand Slam tournament, and it was a pretty accurate comparison.
Novak Djokovic is the man who has reached more Grand Slam finals than any other man in tennis history. Djokovic has reached 37 Grand Slam finals, winning 24 of them, more than any other male player.
Aside from a few wins over opponents that proved he was on a different level than his many helpless opponents, Djokovic was often forced to go all out for the marbles.
At various times during the 24-match final, Djokovic struggled, only to bounce back in the next set. He showed an extreme memory after a bad match, one of the many qualities that make him an all-around player. Where other players might dwell on crucial points or lost rounds, Djokovic puts it behind him and moves on.
After losing the second set, the Indian players now need to find the courage to be like Djokovic and return to the stage of their greatest victory overseas.
Just as Australia’s crushing win in Adelaide did not instantly remove all doubts surrounding the team, the loss in Perth did not mean that India’s flaws magically disappeared. The Adelaide defeat also made that clear.
Yashasvi Jaiswal’s stellar performances have seen India become overly reliant on his batting excellence of late. (Getty Images: Cameron Spencer)
Let’s start with hitting the ball.
India’s overall form continues to languish, with recent data suggesting that Perth’s second innings performance was more of an anomaly than a return to normalcy.
The tourists’ score of 6-487 against a tired Australian side in Perth was only the second time in their last 10 innings that they had scored more than 300 runs. The other score came after they were beaten by New Zealand by 46 runs in Bangalore.
The arrival of Yashasvi Jaiswal has been a godsend for this ageing squad, but it has also brought with it an over-reliance on the 22-year-old new batting talent.
India is lucky that Jaiswal has scored so many runs in his Test career. Almost half of his 30 innings have been half-centuries or centuries, and as he showed in Perth, when Jaiswal scores over three figures, he shines. All four of his centuries have ended with scores of more than 150.
Jaiswal’s brilliance masks the ugly truth about India’s batting line-up – if he doesn’t get going, the Indian batting line-up is in trouble, and has been for a few years now.
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In 30 Test innings, Jaiswal scored 30 or less in 15 innings, and India scored more than 300 runs only once. In 13 of the 15 innings, India lost all 10 wickets. In those 13 innings, the team averaged 174.38. That just won’t do the job in Australia.
If Jaiswal doesn’t score most of the runs, who else can?
Virat Kohli appeared to have broken free of his prolonged slump in form after hitting a century in Perth, but like his team, the batting looked more like an anomaly this time around.
The Kohli we saw in Adelaide was the same Kohli we’ve seen for five years, robbing the ball off his wicket time and again. The scout reports are in, here’s how to crack the Indian maestro’s spell.
Hitting a hundred in a Test match against Australia is the hardest, especially in Australia, so Kohli’s performance in Perth should not be underestimated. However, with his team leading by 321 runs, Kohli’s figures of 2-275 against an attack that had bowled 505 balls were perfect circumstances for Kohli to improve his numbers, and he took advantage of the conditions, which is commendable.
However, if India is to win this series, it will need a player like Kohli, who has scored hundreds while playing Test matches in the toughest conditions, scoring 153 of his team’s 307 runs at Centurion in 2018 against South Africa (with players like Morkel, Philander and Rabada.
It is worth noting that Kohli’s numbers while captaining India pale in comparison to his numbers while leading the national team. While captaining, he played 68 Test matches, scoring at an average of 54.80 and hitting 20 centuries, while he averaged 38.81 and hit 10 centuries when not captaining. In the past two years under Rohit Sharma, the average has dropped to 36.42.
While the captaincy is often a burden on players, leading India from the front always seems to bring out the best in Kohli. The higher the stakes, the better he plays. The tourists desperately need that version of him to walk through the wickets again. Does that version of him still exist? The overwhelming evidence suggests that it is not.
India must decide which position in the batting order can get Rohit Sharma back to his best form sooner rather than later. (Getty Images: Mark Blake)
Talking about the current Indian captain, he has become the “big guy” in people’s eyes. India’s victory in Perth without Sharma fully demonstrated the Ewing Theory.
The Ewing Theory is a basketball theory that states that the absence of certain star players can improve a team’s performance. The theory is named after New York Knicks legend Patrick Ewing, whose absence helped the Knicks to a Cinderella-like run to the 1999 NBA Finals.
This is not to say that Sharma is a bad captain. He led the team to the T20 World Cup title a few months ago and also reached the 50-over World Cup and World Test Championship finals. Even if you inherit a ready-made winning machine from Kohli, you don’t achieve these feats with poor leadership.
In Perth, though, India seemed more spirited under Jasprit Bumrah, especially with his delivery. His variations were positive and effective, his delivery placements were often aggressive, and his announcements in the second innings were well-timed.
Australia answers some, but not all of its questions in Adelaide romp
Australian cricketers Alex Carey, Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith are pictured smiling at Adelaide Oval during the Test match against India.
Winning by 10 wickets was a great way for Australia to respond to their first Test defeat, but while victory in Adelaide won’t solve all of the home team’s problems, it does make for an intriguing series.
It was a stark contrast to what we saw in Adelaide, when Sharma bizarrely removed Bumrah from the attack as Australia’s eventual centurion Travis Head came on. Later on the first day, when Australia bowled the new ball, commentators wondered where Ravichandran Ashwin, the winner of 537 Test wickets, was, but Ashwin bowled a ball just before the end of the over.
It’s no surprise that Sharma didn’t perform well in his two innings in Adelaide. Since arriving in Australia, he has scored a total of 12 runs in three innings, if you include the warm-up match with the Prime Minister’s XI. Adelaide was his first Test match in over a month.
More worryingly for India, if you were hoping for an uptick in Sharma’s form, Australia is pretty much the last place to expect that to happen.
The Indian captain’s overall record in Test matches remains very good, but his performances outside India are clearly below average.
In 29 away Test matches, Sharma has scored just two centuries at an average of 32.44, nine runs below his career average. His record in Australia is even worse, with just three half-centuries in eight Test matches at an average of 27.80. His last century away from home in India was against the West Indies in July 2023.
Whether Sharma continues to hold onto the No.6 spot or reclaims the opening spot from KL Rahul remains a subplot to watch for the rest of the series. Should he attack the new ball in the opening slot rather than trying to slam and slam at the end of the innings? Which of the two approaches will get him back into form quicker?
Chheteshwar Pujara played a crucial role in India’s last two series in Australia (2018-19 and 2020-21). (AP: Rick Rycroft)
The key to India’s two series wins in its last two tours of Australia has been its number three, Cheteshwar Pujara.
Pujara averaged 47.28 in 11 Tests in Australia over three tours, but a more telling statistic about his impact is that his strike rate in those Tests was 37.37, well below his average of 49.37 at home.
Pujara’s innings was unspectacular but he swallowed ball after ball, wearing out Australia’s fast bowlers while allowing the likes of Kohli in his prime and a young Rishabh Pant to score runs around him. India chased down 329 last time out at the Gabba, and Pant’s unbeaten 89 came after Pujara swallowed 211 balls and scored 56 in 314 minutes.
India need to decide who will play the role of Pujara this time. Early voting results seem to indicate that Rahul is the most likely candidate, rather than the flamboyant Jaiswal, Pant or Shubman Gill.
The Indian batsmen were in poor form overall, which meant more pressure on the seemingly tireless Bumrah.
The visitors have taken 30 wickets in the two Tests so far in this series, with Bumrah taking 12 of them. To have him carry such a heavy load for five Tests is a plan fraught with danger and completely unsustainable, even for a first-rate bowler like Bumrah.
When Bumrah collapsed to the turf with cramps and received physiotherapy treatment on the second day of the Adelaide tournament, the whole stadium – and perhaps the whole of India – was shaken, and for good reason.
Jasprit Bumrah’s cramp in Adelaide was a warning sign of what could happen later in the series if he overworks himself. (Getty Images: Robert Cianfron)
As the physiotherapist worked on Bumrah’s groin, Ravindra Jadeja massaged Bumrah’s golden right shoulder. If he went down in this series, India’s hopes of retaining the Border-Gavaskar Trophy would be over.
Just like batsmen do with Jaiswal, Bumrah’s stellar form away from home has led to opponents developing an unhealthy reliance on him.
That was evident in Adelaide, where Australia’s batsmen were tested under Bumrah while coming out on top at the other end.
Bumrah has taken multiple wickets in 41 of his 56 innings bowled outside India, which is a remarkable achievement in itself. The problem is that when he doesn’t take multiple wickets, it usually results in the opposition scoring more.
That Australia scored 337 in Adelaide and Bumrah still looked untreatable was a testament both to how good Travis Head’s batting was and to the attacking ability of the rest of the Indian team, which looked weak in the wide areas.
Mohammed Siraj has proved himself to be a good partner for Bumrah, taking 65 wickets at an average of 26.73 outside India, but the third bowler position remains a question.
In an ideal world, India’s other fast bowler, Mohammed Shami, would come straight back and all would be well. However, expecting Shami, who has not played a Test match since June 2023, to bowl 20 balls per innings in the next three Test matches seems an unrealistic and unfair request for a player who has just turned 34 and has undergone ankle surgery.
India are hoping Mohammed Shami will join them for the tour after this Test series. (Getty Images: Robert Cianfron)
Harshit Rana may one day be the leader of India’s Test attack, but he is still very much a green hand. The 22-year-old has taken four wickets in this series at a rate of 50.75 runs per wicket.
The more shocking statistic is his economy rate of 4.51. India needed their third fast bowler to tie the scoreline, and Siraj and Bumrah were at full strength. If not for Shami, India would have likely kept Rana in Brisbane for a while, with Akash Deep or Prasidh Krishna as backup.
Following Bogle’s analogy, India, after a tough second set, is now ready to come back and play the third set, which is often the key in Grand Slam finals, where the score is tied. They may throw a racket or two in the locker room in frustration between sets.
If you are an India fan, the good news is that, just like Djokovic in all these finals, India has also shown a strong ability to bounce back from adversity. If Gautam Gambhir needs any inspiration for his team, he only needs to recall what happened to India after their loss in Adelaide during the last tour of Australia.
No one predicted India to win the series but they came up with a diamond under immense pressure.
You’d be brave to bet against them doing it again. But they’d have to reverse some worrisome trends to bounce back.
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