A fitting swansong.
This game was supposed to be a write-off. Less than a week ago, India fought valiantly against seemingly insurmountable odds to salvage a well earned draw. In doing so however, their two best bowlers got injured, their all-rounder broke a finger and their last fit recognised middle order batsman pulled a hamstring. All of this was happening to a team that was already without its best batsman and two frontline bowlers, and had been skittled for 36 only a couple of weeks earlier. This meant that they were going to start the fourth test with a comical makeshift batting lineup and a bowling lineup with two debutants — having mere 11 test wickets and 3 matches worth of experience combined. Australian bowling attack on the other hand, had 1033 wickets and 250 matches under their belt. Their two best batsmen were back in form, and they were going to be playing their last game at a venue that can only be described as an impregnable fortress — one that hasn’t been downed in 42 years.
At the beginning of this tour if someone had predicted that Mohammed Siraj and T Natarajan will be opening the bowling for India in a test match at the Gabba — I would have asked them what messed up cocktail of hallucinogens and psychedelics they had been consuming. I’m not trying to take anything away from them here. They are very good cricketers. Especially Mohammed Siraj who is very much a finished product thrown up by the India A system. Natarajan has been more of a wildcard. He came on this tour as a net bowler. He wasn’t supposed to play a single game. Thanks to Varun Chakravarthy’s shoulder he got to make his T20 debut. A series of subsequent injuries resulted in him becoming the first Indian to debut in all three formats on a single tour.
Somehow India managed to put eleven nearly fit players on the field for this game. They lost their third straight toss, and yet again, one of their bowlers walked away injured after bowling seven overs. You wouldn’t blame any side if they lost heart in such a situation. And you wouldn’t blame such an inexperienced bowling attack if it found itself outmatched, outclassed and demoralised when faced with a well set Steve Smith and his understudy. Their shoulders didn’t drop and they didn’t look jaded at all. If anything, they looked like a side that was very much enjoying itself on the field. Dropped chances and further injuries didn’t bother them. Every time it looked like the game was going to get out of their hands — they came back hard — they fought with diminished resources, and little experience, and in conditions that were better suited for the opposition.
Washington Sundar is no Ravichandran Ashwin, but he did the job that Ashwin was supposed to do. He dismissed Steve Smith using the same template that Ashwin has perfected over the course of this series — bowling tight lines to a packed leg side field. You still have to give Sundar credit for the skill with which he executed those plans. He had bowled 19 dot balls to start his test career. His figures at this stage read 3.1–3–0–1. He continued in very much the same vain through the rest of the innings ending with 3 wickets while doing a more than decent job of holding up an end — exactly what you expect from your spinner in the first innings on a batting surface. Not bad for a 21 year old rookie who hasn’t played first class cricket in 3 years!
Mohammed Siraj found himself as the leader of this unlikely attack. He started well, removing David Warner with a peach in the very first over. He kept it tight for most of the innings bowling 28 overs at 2.75 and didn’t get bogged down by the responsibility. Shardul Thakur, on the other hand, blew hot and cold throughout the innings — alternating between expensive and inspired spells — eventually doing well to finish with 3 wickets.
Highest praise though, should be reserved for T Natarajan. He bowled without much success but with a lot of heart and discipline through most of the day, conceding little more than two runs per over for most of the first day. When it looked like the Aussies were running away with the game — with both Matthew Wade and Marnus Labuschagne well set — he came back to dismiss both of them with short balls. At this point his figures read 14–2–33–2, figures that Ishant Sharma himself would be proud of. The experience did catch up with him later in the day though, as he ended up conceding 30 runs from the last 6 overs he bowled in the day. On the second day, he came back to pickup another wicket — that of Josh Hazlewood with a perfectly executed yorker to end with 3 wickets.
Marnus Labuschagne, riding his luck, played well for a hundred and eight, and combined well with Matthew Wade to get them close to a dominant position. Subsequently, a partnership between Tim Paine and Cameron Green, followed by a brief assault from Nathan Lyon propelled Australia to a score of 369. But this contest was a lot closer than Australia would have liked. Doesn’t matter what the result of this game is, this Indian team will return home with their heads held high. Against all adversities, they have managed to hold their own against the world’s best bowling attack in their territory. This is no ordinary feat.
