Another terrific performance from India. Ashwin and Jadeja did exactly what they have been doing for the last few years at home. Running through some quality international teams like hot knife through butter.
The hype around this series was for a good reason, fans and the ‘experts’ too thought Australia was going to be different from all the other teams that have toured India of late.
This was Australia, a team with the pedigree of some great performances over the years here, even against the famous Indian spin quartet of the 70s. In this team there were two batters Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne with staggering Test averages of 60 and 70 respectively, players viable in all conditions, especially Smith.
Steve Smith with his 100 in Pune in 2017 had already shown us how dangerous he can be on these Indian turners. This time he had Labuschagne for company, who seems to have a feel for playing spin and that was evident in his very first Test innings in India in Nagpur.
I was thinking, if these two get a slightly good batting surface they had the potential to get big hundreds just like Joe Root did in Chennai in 2021.
{{/usCountry}}I was thinking, if these two get a slightly good batting surface they had the potential to get big hundreds just like Joe Root did in Chennai in 2021.
{{/usCountry}}Australia got 177 and 91 in Nagpur and rightly felt the need to do something different in Delhi. Most of their batters got out defending in Nagpur. Come the Delhi Test with a pitch not too dissimilar to Nagpur they decided they weren’t going to be sitting ducks against Ashwin and Jadeja and would do something different to put them off their game.
Lo and behold! They found instant success with Usman Khawaja. Khawaja played all the sweeps there are in the modern game and succeeded. He got 81 in the first innings after scores of 1 and 5 in Nagpur. That success of Khawaja actually was the main reason for Australia’s batting failure in the second innings. Each Australian batter after that came in with a mindset to attack and that too with the sweep shot; ‘sweep to succeed’ seemed to be their motto.
It was sad to see the captain Cummins himself, after seeing his predecessors get out playing the sweep shot, play a big sweep first ball he faced and get bowled. What’s more their last man Kuhnemann too got out playing the sweep – it seemed like Australia were now being stubborn no matter what the outcome.
The thing with the sweep shot is that not everyone can play it. You can maybe play it once in a way and achieve the desired result. But some are really good at it, it’s part of their primary game hence they have played it a million times. From India, Surya is that guy.
Smith’s India past
It was painful to see Smith try the sweep and get out in the second innings. This is a batter who got one of the greatest hundreds seen on Indian soil from a foreign batter in Pune in 2017, a Test that Australia won. India got only 105 and 107 in that Test, which tells you a lot about that surface. Smith got a 100 on that pitch playing normally, as in, playing his natural game, as in, playing as per the merit of the ball. There was no premeditation or out of the box thinking or execution in that innings.
If Smith and Labuschagne had not bought into the overall team tactics, I have no doubt they would have made this win for India far more hard earned. This pitch like the Nagpur one was dangerous at only certain times of the day and also dependant on the hardness of the ball. That’s why India were able to get 400 in Nagpur and Axar batting at No 8 and 9 got fluent 84 and 74 in the two Tests.
I believe Peter Handscomb, Smith and Labuschagne are good enough batters to play their natural game and make valuable contributions to their side. All the three judge the length of spinners really well and are secure in defence. The thing about turners is that the first 10 minutes, even for exceptional batters it may seem unplayable and as a batter you start thinking ‘forget about getting runs, how am I going to survive the next ball on this?’
Now if you let this thought fester in your mind you are in trouble.
One must continue to believe that things do get easier after a while once you survive the first 10 minutes or so. Batters who don’t have a good defence against spin, I can understand them attacking as a form of defence to survive, but these three really don’t need to. Basically, all Australian batters just overreacted to the surface and to the threat of the brilliant spin duo of Ashwin and Jadeja.
The way India batted playing the sweep only rarely to get to the winning target must have been so hard to watch for whoever propagated the sweep strategy in the Australian camp.
The Indian approach
Finally, on the sweep shot.
It’s a shot most great Indian batters against spin never played. To give you examples Sunil Gavaskar, VVS Laxman, Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar started playing it much later only to serve a particular purpose. Even Virat Kohli, who looked so compact in Delhi, never plays the sweep.
These batters never felt the need to, they were great judges of length they played right back to the ball slightly short and full stretch forward to a ball that was full; and to score they had 7-8 shot options, sweep not being one of them.
Batters who have a very limited scoring range against spinners and uncertain in defence have no choice but to play the sweep because it’s a shot you play to a good length delivery, so you are trying to blunt the spinners’ main weapon.
It makes some sense if limited batters do it but that too can’t be every ball. Renshaw in the second innings attempted five sweeps in his eight-ball innings.
I know for a fact, whether it’s domestic cricket or international cricket, when in Delhi Indian coaches drill just one thought into the heads of their batters – guys, the ball keeps quite low here, do not play the sweep shot!