India vs Australia | Takeaways: Australian pacer’s excessive experiment and captains’ love for history over rationality

Experiment. Too much of experiment

While from the outside, it doesn’t seem like the Australian pacers had a great series, the inside camp would disagree with that. Of course, they haven’t been able to replicate their Indian counterparts, but statistically, Australia are actually bowling better in this series than in the last year’s Ashes. The only criticism stemmed from the fact that they were not consistent in their approach and as proved in Sydney, it was indeed the case.

In the first session, Australia found some swing as Josh Hazlewood managed to get KL Rahul’s outside edge in his first over. All in all, their first 10 overs were based on the tactics of bowling more full balls and try getting edges through that. The problem was that they never persisted with that after Mayank Agarwal hit two boundaries. After the drinks break, Hazlewood resorted back to bowling in a good line and length, against which the Indian opener was a bit more cautious, and Mitchell Starc, on the other hand, started digging in short balls to make Agarwal’s stay uncomfortable. While Agarwal gloved a short ball which glanced off his helmet and went for four, Pujara blunted the attack before taking a blow on the back of the helmet from Hazlewood with the ball not far from lobbing into his stumps.

After overseeing the first session, it was time for India to pull off a stunning retaliation in the post-lunch session. Agarwal used the pull shots to good effect while fending the fast bouncers easily, unlike the first session. Therein lies the problem because Indian batsmen never feared consistent bounce. They always adapt to it and as Pujara proved in this series, it isn’t his kryptonite anymore. Australia would have been better placed by trying to do more with the new ball before resorting to the short ball later.

Why are you stacking your team with spinners if the trend shows otherwise?

SCG has always been touted as the most ideal and sought after pitches in Australia for the spinners. While Shane Warne picked up 64 wickets from the 14 matches that he had played at the venue, Stuart MacGill is at the second position on the list with 53 wickets. That has given the SCG the reputation of a turner, but the reality is much more different now. 

After Warne and MacGill’s retirement from international cricket, spinners have found hard to crack the SCG code and apart from Nathan Lyon, none has remained successful. The New South Wales spinner, who has the highest wickets among all current spinners in the international cricket with 22 scalps, still averages 48.14 and the top 10 current wicket-takers list has only Steve O’Keefe with seven wickets to his name. To put matters into perspective, in the last decade, spinners average 51.63 at the SCG which is the highest figure for any ground in Australia. However, both the team, being blinded by history, stacked their teams with spinners. While India went ahead with Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav and Hanuma Vihari, Australia included Marnus Labuschagne to support the local boy. 

The first day’s play also completely belies their selection as Mitchell Starc got around and swung the ball on the very first session before trying the short-ball tactics. Indians were very much cautious against him and when Tim Paine turned his head towards Nathan Lyon, he couldn’t do much help either. The wicket lacked any sort of turn, and the dryness underneath meant Lyon was taken to the cleaners by Mayank Agarwal. Although the Indian got carried away and played a needless shot to end his stay, Lyon understood that a wicket was a bonus and spinners are not going to get a lot of benefit from the surface. 

Pujara critics have gone into permanent hiding

Cheteshwar Pujara isn't really a 'Talk Nah' sort of guy. If he was, he might have opened his Twitter and slammed his critics for questioning his ability to bat in the overseas conditions. He doesn’t do that, neither does he need to do that. Pujara might not be the modern-day gladiator, but he made sure that his virtues are way too scared in this world which judges a cricketer by his ability to hit big sixes in the T20 leagues. Pujara is the Rahul Dravid to Virat Kohli’s Sachin Tendulkar - always behind the shadows. 

When Virat Kohli scored 692 runs during his last trip to Down Under, Australia kept themselves busy to plan the Indian skipper’s dismissal. That helped Pujara pretty much like it did help Dravid when the world was making plans for Tendulkar in 2002. Dravid stepped out of the shadows and revealed in having one of his most glorious years in Test cricket, in which he scored a total of 1357 runs in 2002 and started one of the most glorious years in his Test cricket career. Pujara knew that he needed a season of such authority to establish his dominance and he took the perfect year to bring that up.  

When he played that 92 in the second innings in Bengaluru last year, the team was trailing by 87 runs, and his 202 in Ranchi came in at a time when India were 120 runs behind. In the current series, with the openers not being able to make any big contribution, Pujara became only the third Indian to score three or more centuries in a series in Australia and made the bowlers tired. A lot has been talked and written about his duel with Nathan Lyon and the biggest compliment for him probably came from the off-spinner, who said, “Aren’t you bored yet, Pujara”. The series has been a renaissance for the stoic Saurashtra boy, and he wouldn't let it go like that.