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Border-Gavaskar Trophy: All quiet at Kotla as India look to compound Aussie misery
The Australians have been unusually subdued in the build-up to the second Test, a reflection of their recent record in India
The quiet before the second Test between India and Australia feels rather odd. When the Aussies usually come visiting, there are a few predictions (remember Glenn McGrath), some arrogance (Steve Waugh) and some straight-talking (Ricky Ponting). Someone somewhere would have something to say or they would try and get under the skin of the opposition. Gamesmanship or mental disintegration, call it what you will, it would set the stage up for the series. Contrast that to the scenes one witnessed at the Ferozeshah Kotla ground on the eve of the second Test between India and Australia and you realise that while nice doesn't have to mean soft, this side doesn't quite feel Aussie enough.
India won't mind this one bit. The home team is a side that does not take its foot off the accelerator, especially in Tests in India. They don't lose much and there is an aura surrounding the spinners that the entire team basks in. Few matches last the distance and when they do, it requires a Herculean effort from the opposition. So, if Australia are being all nice and polite, India just need to play along.
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It might perhaps be okay to dismiss the second-innings collapse at Nagpur as an aberration and Australia's reaction to the loss might well be different from what we can see on the outside, but skipper Pat Cummins's words paint a very indecisive picture -- almost as if he has started painting without quite knowing how he wants the finished product to look like.
Will they continue to back David Warner? Will a fit Cameron Green give the team more options? Will Mitch Starc come back? Will you look at another spinner? What about Travis Head? Cummins seemed to adopt a 'wait and watch' approach for each of those questions in the press conference. He might have wanted to keep his cards close to his chest, but this is different from the usual 'devil may care' Australian attitude. Rather we heard the 'India is a tough place to win in' retort a couple of times and one wonders how that works from a confidence perspective. At the training camp in Bengaluru, Australia's batters tried to work out how they would bat against India's spinners, but what worked in theory didn't quite work real-time.
It made one remember Justin Langer's words, as seen in The Test (an eight-part documentary on Australian cricket), after a defeat to England in 2018: "Some of you have got so many f***ing theories, you've got f***ing theories coming out of your brain. None of you are good enough to have theories yet."
Or better still, the manner in which Ricky Ponting had addressed Warner's fear of getting out: "If you're scared about getting out, f*** that. You've got to be thinking about getting runs, not be worried about making a mistake. I've been there, you start thinking about making mistakes as a player, you're f***ed. At the end of the day, all of you have got nothing to fear, nothing to lose right now."
And if Australia truly want to compete, they will have to adopt the Ponting or Langer template here. They really do have nothing to lose.
Cummins did say he is backing his players but how many believe him? Australia's record since they beat India at home in 2004 has been poor. In 2008/09, they lost a four-Test series 0-2. In 2010/11, they lost both Tests. In 2012/13, they lost 0-4. In 2017, Australia finally won a Test but lost the series 1-2. And they have already lost the first Test on this tour. That adds up to 15 Tests, 1 win, 11 losses and 3 draws.
On guard
For India, it is a very different situation. The only thing they need to seemingly guard against is complacency. When they were in a spot of bother at 160/5 in the first Test, the manner in which the team recovered gave Rahul Dravid and Co a lot of confidence. Still, it was a warning, one that the hosts have not ignored.
"All round it was a very good Test for us. To be able to restrict Australia to 177 after losing the toss was a big credit to the bowlers," said Dravid on Wednesday. "The 3rd-4th innings can be wrapped up quickly sometimes in India but it is a lot of hard work to get to that point. You have to play tough, determined cricket and that is what we did till that point. We squeezed them really well and with the batting, we showed discipline. At times we were put under pressure, obviously at 160/5 but Rohit (Sharma) was the glue that held the innings together. In games like this, you need the one batter who gets to cash in and make it big. That was probably the difference."
Spin will continue to be India's weapon of choice, the question around KL Rahul's place in the team persists and Shreyas Iyer, who had a light session at India's optional nets on Thursday, is likely to come back into the playing XI. But at the same time, Dravid wants to make sure that his team doesn't dwell too much on past results.
"We had spoken about it before the first Test that if we want to win, we will have to play good cricket; tough cricket," said Dravid. "Sometimes, you can go wrong in the first Test of a series but they will come back. We cannot be carried away by that. We know the Australian team is a good one, very experienced and their boys have come here before. We know if we want to win the series, we will have to play good cricket. Sometimes it can happen after a Test — they would have learned something from Nagur. They will try to use those learnings as well."
"We will not focus on history too much. We want to forget 1987 (when India last lost at the Kotla), we have forgotten Nagpur as well. Whatever has happened in Napgur is done. We are in Delhi and we have to play well here."
It is this simplicity of thought that has served India well at home and one that Australia would love to replicate if they could.
