Heavy emotional baggage weighed us down in Tests

But it’s also hard on our players. Australians dislike losing and are passionate about their sportsmen and women, and express themselves at every opportunity in all sorts of ways. As members of the Australian team, we are extremely proud of our heritage; we cherish every opportunity to represent our country; and we delight in beating our opponents, always, but enjoy the thrill and the adrenalin rush of doing it at home.

Carrying such expectations and emotional baggage into a series and into crucial games can be both an advantage and a disadvantage. I believe the team struggled with this weight throughout the Test series. There were many reasons for this which don’t require public discussion, save to say, regardless of all our rhetoric throughout the Test series, we were unable to utilise the passion of playing for one’s country to our advantage.

As a consequence, Indian batsmen dominated our bowling with the clear example being Brett Lee trying to capture and deliver his skills through the 3rd and 4th Tests without any significant success.

Compare those memories and sights of Brett with what we saw through the unfolding of the VB series. Here was the young speed king gradually showing his critics that all he needed was time to physically and mentally recover from Sydney.

In Perth, Brett reminded the top order Indian batting that his pace, bounce and control were back. Here was a young man signalling to his opposition that, at the business end of the season, he would be ready to stand tall.

At the same point of the season, the Indian team were spiralling in the other direction. Injuries, unskilled and undisciplined batting against pace bowling (which had been the backbone of their Test series), distress calls to additional outside help, and increasing signs of body language that indicated to us that the team was reaching breaking point formed a mounting wave of negativities near-impossible to reverse at the back end of a tour. As I outlined in my last article, I believe we entered the final series with an edge in the ‘‘mental toughness’’ domain based on the Herb Elliott definition. It now seems I’d been quite conservative in my assessment. After winning in Melbourne quite comprehensively, our ‘‘mental toughness’’ as a unit grew immensely while I can only imagine the range of thoughts within the minds of all Indian players as they arrived at the SCG.

The final series was a wonderful team effort with all players making significant contributions at different times. Gilchrist and Hayden showed their willingness and skill to attack at any time. Ponting led from the front at almost every opportunity. Damien Martyn, maligned by many, batted and fielded superbly throughout the finals capping off his tournament and Rahul Dravid’s final innings on tour with a brilliant run-out. Andrew Symonds was powerful; Michael Clarke, young but effective; Simon Katich did everything that was asked of him at no. 7 and in the field. Brett Lee led the bowlers raids on the Indian batsmen with great support from Jason Gllespie, Ian Harvey and Brad Williams.

India can now look forward to the gripping tussle with Pakistan through the likes of Sehwag, Chopra, Pathan, Singh, Nehra, Patel, Balaji plus the wise heads of Tendulkar, Dravid, Laxman, Agarkar, Kumble, and Ganguly.

(Gameplan)