An India-Australia women’s World Cup semi-final seems a more relevant topic of the hour considering how the other India-Australia cricket is panning out. India are 2-0 up in the four-Test series. But that’s not even the point. Since 2017, India have won eight and lost three out of 14 Tests against Australia, home and away.
India won the 2017 home tour, beat Australia in Australia in 2018-19 and 2020-21 and are on the precipice of another home romp. This prompts
An India-Australia women’s World Cup semi-final seems a more relevant topic of the hour considering how the other India-Australia cricket is panning out. India are 2-0 up in the four-Test series. But that’s not even the point. Since 2017, India have won eight and lost three out of 14 Tests against Australia, home and away.
India won the 2017 home tour, beat Australia in Australia in 2018-19 and 2020-21 and are on the precipice of another home romp. This prompts an inkling that maybe the Border-Gavaskar Trophy is ceasing to be a fair contest. Right now, it’s more a chance for India to further expose an inept Australia after shredding the smokescreen of ‘doctored’ pitches playing a pivotal part in bringing the visitors to their knees.
Nagpur wasn’t a dust bowl. Delhi was as traditional an Indian pitch as it could get. Yet, Australia capitulated spectacularly. For the sake of comparison, this Australian side is no patch on the one that competed in three out of three Tests in 2017, producing humdingers in Pune and Bangalore, a grinding draw at Ranchi before being blown away in Dharamsala. Virat Kohli didn’t play the decider, mind you. But Australia were still outplayed by Ajinkya Rahane’s leadership and Kuldeep Yadav’s wrist spin.
There is no doubt that India win better at home than any other nation. In the last decade, they have lost just two out of 44 Tests at home—to Australia in Pune (2017) and England in Chennai (2021). Their win/loss ratio at home is an off-the charts 18 (36 wins to two losses), putting to shade even a second-placed Australia’s fabulous win/loss ratio of 6 (36 wins to six losses). At the same time—and this hasn’t been stressed enough—no team has played better away from home than India, aggregating a win/loss ratio of 0.954 (21 wins to 22 defeats in 54 Tests). Next best? Pakistan, with a W/L ratio of 0.66, followed by England (0.62) and Australia (0.6).
It’s a consequence of this steady upward curve that India is increasing the gap with other teams, Australia in particular. Is it bad advertisement for the rivalry? Perhaps. Should India savour this high? Absolutely. Let’s not forget how the Border-Gavaskar trophy used to predictably switch hands depending on the hosts of the series. 2001 was a once-in-a-lifetime slugfest. But 2004? That was planned dismantling of a brilliant India team in their backyard. And that’s why that Australia team is possibly one of the best tourists ever in the history of Test cricket.
India are gaining a similar reputation now, having drawn in England, nearly winning in South Africa and beating Australia on two consecutive tours. The only reason now India-Australia tours are becoming little more than exercises in futility is because Indians have adapted better than their counterparts. Like in bowling. The great Shane Warne’s worst average was in India. Jason Krejza and Steve O’Keefe were at best one-Test phenomena before Nathan Lyon gave some semblance of respect to Australia’s slow bowling but he alone was never enough. India, on the other hand, transitioned from a side that lacked a genuine fast bowling pair for the longest time to one that had Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami and Umesh Yadav bowling in tandem.
From being a unidimensional bowling attack at home—often fielding one pacer to take the polish off the ball so that spinners could be deployed as soon as possible—India now use Yadav and Shami to reverse the old ball while administering Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin in several unpleasant doses. With the bat too, India have applied themselves better, scoring 13 hundreds in Australia in the last 10 years while Australia have scored just three in India. Only four times have Australia scored 300 or more in India during that time. India? Twelve times. All this, while not forgetting how to remain the better scoring side at home.
It’s difficult to pinpoint why Australia suddenly lost their stomach for a fight but the 2018 Sandpapergate seems like a reasonable inference. Some players couldn’t survive the ensuing churn, some just lost their edge. From being nearly infallible, Australia are now fighting to stay afloat. The current picture is grim too.
David Warner and Josh Hazlewood have been ruled out of the tour. Ashton Agar is returning home. Pat Cummins, also homebound, is not certain to lead in the third Test. Australia are still better off than India in 2021, when they were walking wounded and forced to call upon their net bowlers at Gabba where they rose above adversity to announce themselves as special. Expecting a similar miracle from Australia is nothing short of a daydream though.
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