From Perth to Sydney: A study in contrasts
India faces pressure in the final Test against Australia as they trail 2-1, needing improved batting and leadership amid key player absences.
Sydney: It’s not how you start but how you finish that really matters. If you are an Indian fan, think back to the scenes after the first Test of the Border Gavaskar Series in Perth on November 25. Led by Jasprit Bumrah, India had pulled off a remarkable win and the words being thrown around about Australia’s performance were “humiliation” and “disintegration”. There were also questions about the “togetherness” in the team following Josh Hazlewood’s comment on batters not having done their bit.
How things have changed. With every match, Australia have become stronger as a group, while India relied on individual brilliance to try and keep up. As the series moves into the final Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground, that needs to change for the visitors.
With out-of-form skipper Rohit Sharma likely to sit out, the focus will be on the others to step up — not only as players but also as leaders. A big event can shake up the team but it can also force them to look inward and pull together. This is tough, this is Test cricket.
In the pre-match press conference, coach Gautam Gambhir chose to look at the situation positively.
“If someone had said 40-45 days ago that we would be in this situation, that we can come to Sydney and draw this series, then it’s a good position to be in,” he said. “See, when you come on such tours, it’s not that batting or bowling didn’t do well. If batting and bowling hadn’t done well, we wouldn’t have won a Test match or we wouldn’t have been 2-1 down. We could have been in a worse situation.”
Equally, things could have been a lot better if India had taken their chances. Some strange selections haven’t helped either. Compared to the visitors, the hosts quietly went about their business even in the face of criticism.
“It is just one loss and things would not look as bad if we win at Adelaide,” said off-spinner Nathan Lyon before the second Test. Australia found a way to collectively raise their levels after that.
Speaking to reporters in Sydney, wicketkeeper Alex Carey recalled the journey through the series: “It was quite a disheartening loss there, but since then... the mood hasn’t changed a lot. We’re a proud group. We wanted to bounce back from Perth. But I don’t think we had to change too much.
“Internally, it’s been really level throughout the series. Trusting players to perform when the time comes. Travis (Head) scored the bulk of the runs early in the series, and then (Steve) Smith and (Marnus) Labuschagne stepped up. We understood it wasn’t the way we wanted to play, but I think staying level and understanding that we’re a good team has been the way.”
India have chosen a different way. They have made regular changes to the batting order and the team, R Ashwin has gone home and their bowling has been over-reliant on Bumrah. Over the course of a long series, very few individuals have done justice to their talent.
“Rather than thinking about what’s going to happen over the period of five days, you’ve got to try and break it down to every session, every hour, probably every over,” said Gambhir. “Because we know when we come to places like Australia, every hour matters. And that is what the beauty of Test cricket is because that’s the only format where conditions change after every day, situations changes after every day.
“So, we’ve got to keep fighting. And that’s why every one of us love watching, playing, being part of the Test cricket. I know we’ve got to fight it out.”
The big area of improvement for India has to be the batting, especially in the first innings. The key for India will be to rein in the natural instincts and do what the team needs. The bowling, thanks largely to Bumrah’s series-leading 30 wickets, still compares well with Australia. Shubman Gill is likely to replace Rohit and even though he has got starts, he is yet to make them count.
“That’s probably one area where we’ve lacked in this series,” said Gambhir. “And that’s one of the reasons why probably we trail in this series. But again, I think we had a really decent first innings in Melbourne. Hopefully, we can take that confidence from there and try and get it to Sydney.”
Akash Deep will miss the Test with a back injury and given how well he had performed, this will increase the workload on Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj. Prasidh Krishna is expected to come into the playing XI but he can be erratic.
Australia have dropped Mitch Marsh from the playing XI and Beau Webster will replace him. The allrounder had an incredible Sheffield Shield run, where he scored 938 runs and took 30 wickets last year and he will give Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Scott Boland opportunities to catch their breath.
Everything is on the line for India but Australia have said they will go for the win too. If the weather holds, we just might have another classic on our hands.
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