The 2020-21 Australian tour will remain etched in the memory of Indian cricket fans as long as they live
One month ago, editorials across newspapers were bemoaning the state of Indian cricket. An almost full-strength Indian cricket team was bowled out for 36 runs in Adelaide and, despite drawing the white-ball matches three-all, many feared the worst in the forthcoming Tests. After all, India’s talismanic batsman and captain Virat Kohli was headed home to be with his wife for the birth of their first child. Injuries had begun to take their toll even before the first match and, given Australia’s strict two-week quarantine rules, flying in replacements at a moment’s notice was actually impossible. Foreign commentators, always quick to slam India, predicted a whitewash. Yet, somehow in an incredible show of resilience and extraordinary leadership and batsmanship by stand-in captain Ajinkya Rahane, India won the second Test at Melbourne, the best possible gift they could have given Indian cricket fans heading into the start of the new year after what had been a truly woeful 2020 for almost everyone. In and of itself, that was a great story of redemption, coming back from Indian cricket’s worst moment in contemporary history to win handsomely. Many compared that moment to the heroics of VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid at the Eden Gardens two decades ago. But that was a simple redemption story; this play needed a third act. An act that began with the first match of the new year in Sydney, where a brave Indian second-innings rearguard performance prevented the hosts from winning the Test.
But the play ended in Australia’s fortress of the Gabba in Brisbane, a ground where the home team had not lost in over three decades. And India playing essentially their second XI, giving a part-timer Washington Sundar — who had not played a first-class match in three years — his first cap and boasting a bowling line-up with just five caps among them. On top of that, a young batting line-up was facing an experienced Australian pace battery and a spin bowler playing his hundredth Test. India’s heroics at Melbourne and Sydney were commendable, but most Indian cricket fans thought that a draw at the Gabba would be a great result. The last Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series will remain etched in the minds and memory of the cricket aficionados as the ultimate decider that tested the resilience, composure and physical fitness of the players. The young and largely inexperienced Indian team battled it all in this Test series, within themselves and with the world outside: Issues with facilities, racial slurs, losing key players at crucial junctures, injury after injury, issues with bubble life for multiple months et al. However, the actions of one of India’s former heroes, Rahul Dravid, in shaping this new Indian team under his tutelage as the coach of India’s ‘A’ team must not be dismissed. There was a sense of resilience in this team that ‘The Wall’ himself would have been proud of. Not only did Washington Sundar and Shardul Thakur play the most unexpectedly pleasant seventh-wicket partnership, keeping India in the game in the first innings, Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, the senior man whose body faced blow after blow, and finally Rishabh Pant, the Delhi boy whose abilities have been openly questioned and in whose perseverance in the team many allegations of favouritism have been thrown at India’s management, a young India found its new cricketing heroes. This is more than a redemption story, this is more than a coming-of-age story; this is an epic, a story for the ages. The Indian cricket team’s grit and determination, particularly by a group of inexperienced young men is a story for the ages. When India won the 2011 World Cup at the Wankhede Stadium, they got an open-top bus ride through Mumbai and while COVID-19 protocols might mean that this team cannot get one, make no mistake, they truly deserve it.
