The Chennai victory

INDIA TRIUMPHED OVER Australia in a remarkable contest at Chennai but, in the final analysis, there was only one real victor: cricket. Rarely has a cricket match - or indeed an entire series - been such a splendid advertisement for Test cricket. Unexpected twists, sensational turns, abrupt reversals, sensational turnarounds - every cricketing cliche seemed to be invested with a special meaning during this astonishing and keenly fought series. Only five cricket teams in the history of the game have come back to win a three-match Test series after losing the opening encounter. In terms of sheer gut-wrenching excitement, the only other Test series in recent memory which has matched the recently concluded one for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy was the famous face-off between England and Australia in 1981.

India's two victories in the series couldn't have been more different. In Kolkata, the Indian team came back from the dead to pull off what was in the end an emphatic 171 run victory. In Chennai, the contest was much more evenly matched and when Harbhajan Singh tickled McGrath to the point region for the winning runs, India had succeeded in scraping through by a mere two wickets. It is perhaps fitting that the match should have ended in this manner, settled by the most slender of margins. It reflected the sharp and even contest between a hardworking professional world-beating side and a young and talented team which was always going to be difficult to vanquish on home soil.

The contest at Chennai evoked memories of its famous predecessor - the tied Test match between India and Australia in 1986, the second such result in the game's history. On the final day, as Indian wickets tumbled as the team edged closer to the Australian score, it was impossible not to reflect on the possibility of the wholly improbable - another tied Test between the two nations in the same venue! That, of course, was not to be. Australia lost the match but they leave Chennai with their reputation for their willingness to play positive, attacking cricket totally intact. Steve Waugh's men went down fighting and it is to the immense credit of the Captain that Australia's batsmen were ordered to push aggressively for victory in the second innings when most other captains would have settled for a draw. It was a risky manoeuvre and, in the end, it didn't pay off. But Waugh deserves to be congratulated for this bold move; in a crucial way, it was responsible for the dramatic conclusion of the Chennai Test. The crowd at Chennai seemed to acknowledge as such by warmly applauding Waugh and his men back on to the field after the match was over.

The Indian team of course deserves unstinted praise. To begin with, it disproved inveterate sceptics and prophets of gloom by performing extremely well and fighting back at moments when it seemed all was lost. To have beaten a side which arrived in this country with 16 successive Test victories under its belt and the reputation of being one of the finest ever Test squads in the history of the game is no mean achievement. At a more specific level, the rediscovery of two extremely gifted cricketers, Harbhajan Singh and V.V.S. Laxman, is a shot in the arm for Indian cricket which has made more news recently for corruption scandals rather than for its achievements on the field. It would be a gross exaggeration to assume we are witnessing the beginning of a renaissance in Indian cricket but we might reasonably conclude that the victory over Australia holds out the hope for a modest but distinct revival. What the Indian side needs to do now is to build on the confidence generated by this exceptional and heart-warming victory.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Opinion
Next     : The odyssey of Mir