India toured and played Australia for the first time in 1947. Lala Amarnath’s side, brave as it was, was outclassed by Sir Don Bradman’s team, losing 4-0 in a five-match series. It would take 11 more tours, a total of 48 Test matches over more than 70 years (including 2018-19), for India to get its hands on a Test series win Down Under. On January 7, 2019, when Virat Kohli lifted the coveted Border-Gavaskar Trophy after a rain-washed final day in Sidney, India scaled one of its final frontiers in cricket. This series was an important milestone for a team that would often struggle outside the subcontinent. Even after becoming a near-invincible force at home, India failed to translate those performances to trickier conditions in SENA countries (South Africa, England, New Zealand and Australia). Going into the tour, in 44 Test matches against Australia in Australia, India had lost 28 and drawn 11, winning only five. Conventional wisdom suggested that Indian batters were technically and mentally wanting in more pace-friendly conditions and Indian bowlers needed the dust-bowls of Chepauk or Kotla to work their magic. India’s convincing series win in Australia (2-1) ended this discussion, once and for all. As India’s batters batted the Aussies to oblivion, India’s fitter, faster pace attack ended a few careers. We take a look at the tale of India’s long-awaited Test triumph in Australia. An Australian team in turmoil One of the reasons why this series is often retrospectively undervalued is because of the turmoil that the Australian team was in at the time. “Sandpaper-Gate” had rocked the Test side earlier in 2018, with two of Australia’s best batters, Steve Smith and David Warner serving lengthy bans in its aftermath. Consequently, there was a massive hole in the Australian top order and a leadership vacuum which then-perceived “good guy” Tim Paine was tasked to fill. Paine was given the captaincy not because of his middling Test record, but because of his affable nature that Cricket Australia hoped would be good for the team’s image. The batting comprised a debutant Marcus Harris, a struggling Aaron Finch, relatively inexperienced players like Travis Head and Peter Handscomb, and the veteran Shaun Marsh. The star batter was Usman Khawaja, though he did not live up to expectations. Marnus Labuschagne made his debut as a leg-spinning all rounder during the series. Simply put, the Australian batting lineup was weaker than it ever had been. During the series, none of the Aussie batters averaged over 35. But Australia still fielded an all-time-great bowling attack, especially in home conditions. The trio of Mitch Starc, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood was as potent as any bowling trio has ever been. Add to that, Nathan Lyon, who had mastered the art of off-spin in unforgiving Australian conditions, chugging to over 450 Test wickets in the process. Australia’s bowling arsenal meant that even with its batting deficiencies, it would be a formidable team to beat at home. An Indian team with Virat Kohli’s stamp At his peak, Virat Kohli was not just the best cricketer in the world, he was also one of its best athletes. A cricketer who had worked on his fitness and physical conditioning like no other (especially in India), ever since he took over captaincy of the Test team from Dhoni in 2014, he tried to transform the Indian team in his own image. Fitness was foremost, with players having to be at peak condition to even be in contention. Also crucial was an aggressive, “winning mentality” – while this phrase has long become a cliche, under Kohli’s captaincy, the Indian team was built to go hard for a win, or lose the game fighting. A pace bowling revolution The most profound impact that this had was on Indian fast bowlers. Long considered to be India’s achilles heel in SENA countries, quality fast bowlers (or the lack thereof) had determined India’s destiny in past series. Remember Pankaj Singh? The star of India’s domestic circuit was called up for India’s tour to England in 2014. What followed was possibly the worst bowling performance by a frontline bowler in the history of Test cricket. In the two matches he played in England, he managed to take only two wickets at an average of 146. The point being that India’s fast bowling talent pool was long considered to be sub-par to consistently win Test matches abroad. Furthermore, even talented bowlers were often injured and seemed to lose pace as soon as they hit their first hurdles in international cricket. Case in point, Munaf Patel. When he entered the cricketing scene in around 2003, he was regarded as one of the fastest bowlers India has ever produced. However, injuries took a toll and by the time he retired, he was nothing more than a canny medium pacer seldom touching 135 kmph. Under Kohli’s captaincy and Ravi Shastri’s able man management, things fundamentally changed. Kohli’s obsession with fitness brought the best out of the likes of Mohammad Shami, Ishant Sharma (who had nothing sort of a Renaissance of his own) and Umesh Yadav. Also, his attraction towards pace bowling meant that he backed his bowlers to the hilt. In Australia, Indian pacers outbowled their Australian counterparts, often bowling faster, hitting consistent lines and lengths, and providing no respite to a weakened batting lineup. The 2018-19 series was also the coming of age of another Indian superstar. Jasprit Bumrah, in a class of his own For a long time, Bumrah had been seen by many as a white ball specialist. However, he himself had other plans. Hardened by the rigours of the Ranji Trophy, Bumrah burst onto the Test scene earlier in 2018 where he impressed in the tours of England and South Africa. But it was in Australia that he cemented his place as one of the best bowlers in the world. His unusual action had always troubled batters. What bothered them even more was his ability to make the ball move around, off the seam. On bouncy Australian wickets, he hurried many a batter into knicks and misses, amassing 21 wickets at an average of 17 in the four matches. One of the most memorable moments of the series was Bumrah’s ball to dismiss Shaun Marsh in the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne. It was the fourth innings, Australia was three wickets down and India was gunning for a victory. However, the pitch seemed to be easing up and the ball had gone soft. Shaun Marsh, a capable veteran who found himself with a pivotal role in the side due to Smith’s absence, had begun to play a few shots. In the last over before lunch, Bumrah decided to bowl a slower ball yorker, a delivery that was not only a testament to his skill but also his cricketing genius. Marsh went through his shot before the ball had even entered the screen and was out, LBW. India would wrap up to get the decisive second Test victory of the series. The Yin and Yang of India’s batting While Indian bowlers dominated, India’s batters played their part too. Virat Kohli had an average series by his lofty standards but still played a couple of pivotal knocks, scoring a hundred and a fifty and ending at third place in the highest run-getters’ list in the series. The two batters above him were Cheteshwar Pujara and Rishabh Pant. While Pujara was India’s resolute wall, Pant was the most fluent strokemaker in the series. Pujara scored 521 runs at an average of over 74 in the series. More importantly, he faced more deliveries (1258) than anyone else in the tour – almost double of the next best, Virat Kohli, who faced 684 deliveries. The sheer length of Pujara’s stay on the crease was fundamental to India’s success. He tired the potent Australian bowlers, one defensive block at a time. Justin Langer, Australia’s then coach, would say, “The first innings in Melbourne and Sydney, honestly, sucked the life out of us because when you are in the field for two days, with only one spin bowler, that takes energy out of the group.” Pujara faced 319 and 373 balls respectively in the two innings, overall facing nearly 35 percent of all deliveries bowled by Australian bowlers in the two innings. For perspective, the whole of the Australian team faced a total of 1029 balls in their respective first innings in the games in question, just 337 deliveries more than Pujara himself. But if Pujara was the immovable rock, Rishabh Pant was the unstoppable force. Pant scored with panache, coming lower down the order and taking tired Australian bowlers to the cleaners. In many ways, Pujara facing all the deliveries that he did, made Pant’s scoring easier. He would enter with Tim Paine setting defensive fields and bowlers often into their third or fourth spells of the innings. In a series where few scored with a strike rate of over 50, Rishabh Pant ended up with a strike rate of over 73. He put away bad balls from the fast bowlers and ruined Nathan Lyon’s figures, dancing down the wicket to the off-spinner at will. He would amass 350 runs with an average of over 58 in the series. A big deal, still Since team India’s heroics, India has enjoyed more success outside the subcontinent, notably again in Australia in 2020-21. Often remembered even more fondly than the 2018-19 series, the more recent series was marred with injuries and absences in the Indian team which it managed to overcome, on its way to an improbable series victory against the full-strength Aussies. However, the 2018-19 series was where it all started – where the SENA wall was finally broken and where the Indian cricket team showed that it could dominate outside the home just as much as it dominated in India.
