A win from the ruins of a defeat

Buchanan himself admitted that 2001 was an eye opener, and since then he’d set in motion a number of processes to get to know India better. ‘‘Talking to Indian coaches, doing a bit of research on the players was all part of the process,’’ he explained.

Just last year, for example, Buchanan visited India to conduct management lectures across the country’s top boardrooms and used the trip to learn more about the country.

For skipper Gilchrist, the loss of form in the 2001 series meant he had to start preparing well in advance for the 2004 sojourn. So, during last year’s one-day tri-series, Gilchrist practiced at training sessions looking ahead to the current series.

‘‘I would bat at the nets imagining that I was playing Harbhajan and Anil in a Test match. The major focus even then was this series,’’ he said at the post-match press conference today.

Off the field, too, the Australians are a changed lot, no longer whining on their tours of the Indian sub-continent. ‘‘The last two tours we have tried to embrace the Indian culture more and more. In the process we have learnt a lot,’’ says Gilchrist.

Acknowledging that the only way of getting to know India is by playing here, Australian teams have become increasingly frequent visitors. India’s stand-in captain Rahul Dravid said the 1996 World Cup is the sort of benchmark for Australian cricket teams touring India. ‘‘Since then they have been here more often than before. Not only the senior squad but also the under-19s, Academy and other development sides, touring India and visiting the MRF Pace Foundation,’’ he observed.

In this team, Shane Warne has been to India four times since the 1996 World Cup and has played both forms of the game.

Dravid, by contrast, has toured Australia just twice in that same time frame.

All this, to conquer the ‘‘Final Frontier’’, as former captain Steve Waugh called it.

Indeed, the first person to call up the Australian team when Zaheer Khan holed out in the deep was Waugh, and the man Gilchrist thanked in his post-match TV interview was ‘‘Tugga’’.

THAT WINNING HABIT

Losing in India in 2000-01 was probably the best thing that happened to this team of Australian cricketers. And the worst thing that happened to the rest of world cricket. Because Australia, learning the lessons of that defeat, have simply gone from strength to strength. They have played 42 Tests since that series (including Nagpur) and lost just five. Of which only one defeat counted, against India at Adelaide; the other four were dead Tests, with the series already won by Australia. India, by contrast, have been unable to let that series win act as a catalyst to their fortunes; their subsequent Test form has been typically patchy with a few memorable wins and equally memorable defeats.

AUSTRALIA
Tests: (P-42; W-30; D-7; L- 5);
Series: (P-13; W-11; D-2; L-0)

INDIA
Tests: (P-38; W-12; D-13; L-13);
Series: (P-38; W-12; D-13; L-13)