Arriving in Australia in the ember weeks of 2024, the Indian Test team finds itself in an unusual position. They are, in a way, the reigning champions. From 1947 onwards, Asian teams made 30 consecutive tours of Australia without winning a single series. Most of the time they didn’t get any closer: Australia won 24, including six draws. It was in January 2019 in Sydney, after more than seven decades, that India, while leading the series, forced the home team to fight for a draw. India finished 2-1 and the impassable was overcome. Two summers later, thanks to the vagaries of a new tour schedule, India came back and did it again, this time sealing the same score with a comeback run for the ages in Brisbane.
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India became the team from the subcontinent that figured out how to win in Australia, beating the first-choice bowling attack at home twice in the process. Then last year, when the organization was reversed, Australia were crushed in Nagpur and Delhi to allow India to maintain control of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in the shortest possible time, just a victory of no longer in India for an unbeatable juggernaut at home for a dozen years.
Look at it this way and India should be the favourites, the team their opponents could not match in either theatre. But add other factors and this view doesn’t hold up. The long period of history still outweighs a double instance over two years. If India had done the same in other difficult areas, things would have been different, but cricket has had few all-season teams. During the victory against Australia, the same Indian team lost both Tests of a brief trip to New Zealand and then the World Test Championship final against the same opponent in England. They twice missed a chance to win a first series in South Africa, losing 2-1 before a shortened next series squandered the chance for a decisive match at 1-1.
The closest they have come to being a world powerhouse has been England in 2021, again leading a series against an old rival 2-1, but this time having a fifth Test to play. At this point, Indian players have given up on their game with a combination of pandemic anxiety, fatigue and worries about quarantine. When they attempted to finish the job a year later, a dynamic team under Virat Kohli had to start from a standing start under Rohit Sharma, a timid England under Joe Root were now charged with adrenaline by Ben Stokes, and the moment was lost. .
Finally, that dozen-year unbeaten home record came to an ignominious end this month. New Zealand again, a team who, despite the disparity in resources, are consistently less intimidated by India than the others. Not just picking up a win after a few draws or a short series, but beating the local titans three out of three times, including bowling out India for 46 and 156 to set up the first two matches, then 121 to seal the third.
In this period since 2012, Home India has been a great testing force, and a few of these recent disappointments abroad would have lifted the adjective’s caveat. But it’s interesting to talk about the nature of teams given that the components change, and certainly for India away there was never any cohesion. Home India saw Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja squeezing through their opponents and only needed local support. Away, India had Kohli with the bat and often nothing else.
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So, is it useful to look at recent Indian achievements to predict what the upcoming series will bring? The winning team in Brisbane in 2021 was notoriously drawn from the ends of the team’s bench, but nine of that XI will likely be gone from the team this week in Perth. Rohit and Shubman Gill are temporarily missing, Washington Sundar seems an unlikely choice. Only Rishabh Pant to keep wicket is a lock, while one could assume that fast bowler Mohammed Siraj will join him, but that will depend on the bowling setup.
These are the vagaries of the Indian selection. Sarfaraz Khan is the new guy, who made 150 in three Test matches before hitting four. So of course his next three hits were at six, seven and eight, he didn’t get many, and now he’s likely to be dropped for Dhruv Jurel. Devdutt Padikkal has played one Test and will now bat three times in one of the biggest series on the Indian calendar, his place dependent on Gill’s injury. Yashasvi Jaiswal is the new opening sensation who has emerged in the last 18 months. In the bowling support ranks, Harshit Rana and Nitish Reddy would make their debuts, Akash Deep and Prasidh Krishna have seven Tests between them.
The veteran category includes Kohli, Ashwin, Jadeja, Jasprit Bumrah and KL Rahul, none of whom arrived in Brisbane in 2021. Australia will field the same bowling attack, three consecutive overs, although the batting has turned. Does it still mean anything to say that India won last time? Rather, it is a new challenge for a largely new group of players, who will still face the difficulty of trying to balance Australia’s long history against touring teams. Their task is also tougher, with five Tests instead of four – winning two matches may no longer be enough. They can look back to the last time to remember that the unheralded can bring about the unexpected, but only when we all look back to the stories of those who came before us. If they can imitate this, perhaps it will be less of a sequence, and more of a reminder that anomalies can coincide.