India vs Australia: Mitchell Johnson comes back to bite

The capitulation was really that stark. It was that dramatic. Rarely had the pendulum swung and with such ferocity from one end to the other in such a short span of a Test match. Just how did a team in complete control of proceedings end up hanging on by the skin of their teeth in three sessions! It was almost as dramatic as watching a billionaire turn pauper in a day’s time. Only possible maybe if he spent the day at Brisbane’s Treasury Casino.

For a mindless 45-minute period on Day Three, India did bowl to Mitchell Johnson like they were in a casino. Hedging all their investments on a bet they thought could never fail. But it had failed. Johnson had thwarted them.

On Day Four, he would crush them. Don’t wake up a sleeping bear, many had warned when India tried to ruffle Johnson’s feathers when he came out to bat in the first innings. The visitors didn’t pay heed. On Saturday morning, the bear was on a rampage. The Indians were on the run. But Johnson caught up with them. He finished them off.

Virat Kohli was the first to go. Off the first delivery he faced from Johnson. Pegged on the back-foot, he poked at a length delivery from the confines of the crease. Inside-edge, bowled. Ajinkya Rahane next. Hit for two fours in the first few deliveries, Johnson dished out a loose delivery, full and wide. Then a ripsnorter, a ball that climbed towards Rahane’s throat with intent and evil intentions.

The right-hander fended but only for the ball to hit his glove and have him caught at gully. The third victim was Rohit Sharma, two balls later. Poked at one that reared up off a length. Ball took the outside-edge en route to Brad Haddin. Unlike Rohit the previous day, Johnson doesn’t bother exchanging words with his victim. Three scalps in 11 balls. At the other end, Josh Hazlewood had MS Dhoni lbw. India had lost four wickets for 11. From 71/1, they had slipped to 89/5.

First hour, over

On Friday, their seamers produced a stunning display with the ball. Here, they had been stunned by Johnson. India never recovered. Thanks to Shikhar Dhawan, batting with a hurting wrist, they would give Australia a target to chase. They would even get rid of six Aussies along the way. But for all practical purposes, the match was over in that first hour or so. In just over two hours, Dhoni’s not-too enviable overseas Test record had received another smear. Another defeat.

They had chances and openings. Plenty of them, in fact. Many of which they had created themselves. But somehow they just couldn’t utilize them. Even till the very end when Kohli dropped a straightforward chance of Steve Smith with the Australian skipper on 9 and the target 65 runs away.

Over the next few days one will hear a lot of talk about looking at the positives. How results aren’t really the best yardstick to judge performances. Why this is a young team still learning its trade, and experience cannot be bought in a market. Or a team that Dhoni described like only he can is “a wine that is brewing”.

We would even be asked to be sympathetic towards their cause. They can only get better after all. But the fact is that they were up against a team that was equally inexperienced, if not more so. It was an Australia in as much a transitional phase as their opponents. But India had come a cropper again.

There were positives, yes. An Indian opener, Murali Vijay, had scored three straight half-centuries, including a century and a 99. Three Indian fast bowlers had hunted in a pack with intensity and intent. A young tearaway had outdone Johnson in terms of raw pace. But still the bottomline read 15th loss in 19 Tests outside the subcontinent in three years. They’d tried their best but their best hadn’t been good enough against a defiant Aussie unit. Their odds on winning a series had been nullified halfway through.

Dhoni would talk about “if we had a decent partnership”, “if the game would have gone into the fifth day”, “if a few mishits had not fallen 15 feet either side of my fielders”. But the ‘ifs’ had no value here. For whichever way you looked at it, India had succumbed to the challenges of playing overseas, yet again. The bottomline read India trail 0-2 with two matches to go.

On Sunday, at 11.15 am, India will be still in Brisbane, licking their wounds, and wondering what could have been. For the Aussies, Christmas had come early.