News Mania Desk / Piyal Chatterjee / 25th November 2024
On the eve of the series-opener in Perth, just before the Border-Gavaskar trophy unveiling, Jasprit Bumrah was excitedly chatting about his son with Australian captain Pat Cummins. He would return to his kid at the end of a sensational come-from-behind win. “My young son was in the stands. He was also there at the T20 World Cup win. He won’t know anything now, but I now have stories to tell him when he grows up; how he was there during special Indian wins.”
For some older cricket fans, seeing India play in Australia over the past ten years has been a delightful way to forget a turbulent past. They challenged Australia in 2014, defeated them in 2018, and appeared to be on the mat in 2021, but they created a victory that would last a lifetime.The lack of important players, a whitewash at home, and concerns about the new management’s ability to collaborate with the players made this 2024 series seem like a bad dream at first. 150 people were killed in four hours on a bright, beautiful Australian day on the first day in Perth, India.
However, the turnaround started that day and was not only maintained over the following three days, but complete dominance was attained as India concluded the first Test in Perth with a 295-run victory, which was their largest in Australia in terms of runs.
Bumrah would nail down the turning point moment as the one that came after the lowest moment in the Test. “The most positive thing was when we were out for 150. There was no one in the dressing room who was down. They believed that if we could get out like that, we could do the same to them. My only message to the team was not to get too desperate as sometimes bowling teams can do that after getting bowled out cheaply. I told them there was enough on the pitch if we hit the right areas.”
To start the celebrations, Harshit Rana, who had also shown off in the first innings, hit Alex Carey with a deft slower ball that castled his stumps. KL Rahul, whose partnership with Yashasvi Jaiswal in the second innings had set up a massive target, had already taken out two stumps and given one to his captain by the time stand-in captain Bumrah could reach the stumps at the non-striker’s end. By then, Rana had embraced Virat Kohli, who subsequently left with Bumrah, their hands clasped over each other’s shoulders. The work was done well.
Even though India crushed the rest to secure a spectacular victory on the fourth day, Travis Head was the only player to put up a fight with a magnificent 89. They lost the first Test match at Adelaide in 2021 after falling behind for 36 runs in the second innings after taking the lead in the first innings. This time, no such errors will be made.After being defeated by tea on opening day, it’s one thing to persevere, gradually recover, and grit out a bloody fight-back, but India preferred to dominate and own Australia rather than fall for the archetypal romantic sporting cliché. All pre-series concerns about a one-sided contest have already been dispelled by this performance, albeit only time will tell how the remainder of the series turns out.
Josh Hazlewood had given up the ghost on the third night itself when, rather than making a valiant attempt to rally, he expressed his hope that a few batters would reach 80 or 100 and somewhat exhaust the Indian bowlers. Steve Smith was one of those batsmen, and he was crucial to Australia’s chances of winning the series. Particularly after Usman Khawaja ran ahead of schedule in an attempt to top-edge a short delivery from Mohammed Siraj to Rishabh Pant.
Josh Hazlewood had given up the ghost on the third night itself when, rather than making a valiant attempt to rally, he expressed his hope that a few batters would reach 80 or 100 and somewhat exhaust the Indian bowlers. Steve Smith was one of those batsmen, and he was crucial to Australia’s chances of winning the series. Particularly after Usman Khawaja ran ahead of schedule in an attempt to top-edge a short delivery from Mohammed Siraj to Rishabh Pant.
When Smith pressed back too early and was unable to get his wrists to do the jail-break for him, Bumrah dismissed him for a first-ball duck in the first innings. His work was all the more difficult on Monday, when the course was playing up-and-down. He did attempt to play straight and play gamely. However, as his innings went on, he started to get trapped at the crease, and his hands were doing everything they could to keep him out there. However, Smith was stuck in the crease and nearly packed together on his toes when Mohammad Siraj hit a length ball in the off-stump channel. He then pulled out his bat to snick it behind.
Head slashed, carved, smashed, and swatted, as he typically does with India. Bumrah ended his stay by bringing himself back with a straightener outside off that soared through to Rishabh Pant after catching the outside edge of an attempted forced punch shot. Dhruv Jurel made the game-changing catch, pulling one out of thin air at short-leg to get rid of Mitch Starc, but the Australian battle quickly faded out of the arena.
