In a Champions Trophy match in Kenya 24 years ago, right after being pulled to the boundary, Glenn McGrath unleashed his frustrations on Sachin Tendulkar, who hit back with two very simple words: the first one started with an “F” and the next one an “O”.
Australia vs India has always been more than just the cricket, which is why this Border-Gavaskar Trophy was originally meant to be such a difficult tour for some of the newer members of the India side. The game here isn’t just restricted to the bat-ball stuff. It spills over.
Verbals. Stare downs. Insults (but the clever kind, so they just about skirt the right side of the line). Australia use these things to carve out an edge for themselves and often what they meet in response is either silence – in which case they just keep going – or a little bit of weakness – in which case they go a bit harder.
From Tendulkar, on that day, they got neither, and that’s why on most days, they didn’t bother trifling with him. From India, over the past four days, they got a whole lot more than they ever bargained for.
Mitchell Starc tried to spook Harshit Rana into not bowling short balls. “I bowl faster than you. And I have a long memory.” The next day – right after knocking down a short ball with the utmost ease – Yashasvi Jaiswal told Starc, “You’re coming on too slow.” Tendulkar gave it back to Australia after ten years of dominating the sport. Jaiswal did it at the first available opportunity.
Mohammed Siraj lobbed his volleys both on the field – where he often extended his follow through to engage with the batter and fire himself up – and off it. “I had a lot of fun. Especially with Marnus [Labuschagne, who made 2 off 52 and 3 off 5 in Perth],” he told the host broadcaster after the Perth win, “He is under so much pressure right now that he is trying to leave the ball as much as possible, not trying to play them. When he defends, he is trying to show that he is confident, but he isn’t.”
It isn’t quite the same as the “scared eyes” comment from David Warner (which Warner has since rolled back) during the Mitchell Johnson Ashes, but it’s not nothing either. And though it might have been coming from a place of the high after the victory was sealed, there was plenty of evidence even in the lead-up to the Test that this team, its coaches and its management are not burdened in the way others that have reached these shores have seemed.
Ajit Agarkar made five back-to-back ducks here. Gautam Gambhir averaged 22. They know how quickly bad luck and bad form perpetuates when on tour, especially in Australia. Now as chief selector and head coach, respectively, they started from a place where Rohit Sharma, the regular captain, was likely to miss the first Test of the tour and the recovery of Mohammed Shami, a senior fast bowler, was taking longer than expected. They had to adapt on the fly when that list grew to include an injury to Shubman Gill, a key top-order batter, at the last minute. And every call they made has paid off so far.
2:50
Jaiswal: ‘I back myself to take brave decisions’
Yashasvi Jaiswal scored 161 to lead India’s second innings batting effort in the Perth Test
India’s greatest win on these shores – Brisbane 2021 – was built on the back of young, almost-unknown players, but that wasn’t the plan. It simply worked out that way. This one in Perth was entirely deliberate.
R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Akash Deep were all available for selection. Tried and tested performers. They were replaced by Washington Sundar, Nitish Kumar Reddy and Rana. A fingerspinner, who had only just broken a period of three years in Test-match wilderness, and two debutant allrounders with first-class records that were patchy at best. And somehow each of them ran roughshod over Australia.
Reddy top scored for India during a difficult first innings. He’d been all keyed up. “I still remember, last practice when we were having, after the practice I had a chat with Gautam sir,” Reddy said, “and he mentioned when you get any bouncers or something like that, sharp spells, you just take onto the shoulders, something like that. Just feel like you are taking a bullet for your country.”
Rana went right up to Labuschagne after hitting him on the inside thigh, stared him down for a second or two and, just before turning around, blew him a little kiss. It was his first over in Test cricket.
Jaiswal went from 95 to 100 with a six, ramped over the wicketkeeper. He actually saw no reason not to. “To be honest, I knew that he [Josh Hazlewood] is going to bowl me a bouncer because the field was set for it and he was trying to bowl [a good line] outside off stump [as a set-up] but I knew that he will do something and I was ready for that ball. So, in my mind, if he is going to bowl me a bouncer, I am going to play that shot, and luckily he did and I played that shot. I enjoyed it.”
The much more experienced KL Rahul, who was at the other end when that happened, and who took pains to rein his partner in early in the innings and make sure he played under his eyes and close to the body, didn’t bother stopping Jaiswal this time. If anything, he enabled him, because they had done the hard work and put themselves in a really strong position.
Same with Jasprit Bumrah, whose triple-wicket opening spell in the first innings paved the way for Rana to start his work and straightaway feel confident enough to tease the opposition batters. Virat Kohli is another significant influence on the youngsters, both those in the squad and those still coming through. His success and his larger-than-life personality has had a top-down effect. A whole bunch of next-gen players are coming up with the same beard, similar tattoos, and a steadfast never-back-down attitude.
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Manjrekar: ‘India’s selection calls made cricketing sense’
Sanjay Manjrekar discusses the brave selection calls India made for the Perth Test, including leaving out Jadeja and Ashwin
The IPL could have had a hand in this as well, connecting the likes of Rana with Starc and Reddy with Pat Cummins, where they have had a chance to get to know the person behind the athlete, which does sometimes help in terms of mindset. You are less likely to be overawed going up against superstars after spending weeks at a time with them in fairly close quarters. Plus there’s India’s rise as a cricketing power. Increased resources mean increased opportunities in rounding the players out and get them used to fight-or-flight situations.
The clout also helps. The team was able to train on their terms, with very little disturbance, which isn’t always the case when you’re travelling abroad on the back of a 3-0 defeat at home.
Wins like Perth don’t come very often. Right at the start of a 43-day tour in conditions that favour the opposition, with an under-strength side. Adelaide might unfurl entirely differently. Australia are well versed in pink-ball cricket. India are not. They have a few days – and a tour game – to bridge that gap and if they are able to adapt even half as well as they did this week, this series is going to get really, really interesting.