What a win!

It is just a few hours before the commencement of the Mohali Test, and I am still recovering from the excitement of Chennai. It was just one of those perfect Test matches, a true celebration of cricket at its best. In the past, such perfect Test matches have usually ended up with India narrowly losing – think Bangalore 1987, or Chennai a decade ago, both against Pakistan.

There isn’t too much to say about India’s performance except gasp in admiration. As Satish pointed out in a recent comment, we are now starting to play like Australia. I know there are still skeptics amongst the populace – people who think we are not good enough, or consistent enough, to be considered a great team.

This may be true in part – we are not yet a great team like the Aussies have been this past decade. But that kind of greatness gets established over years, not months, and comes very rarely in any sport. The quality that Australia has shown has only really been witnessed twice before in the more than a century-year old history of cricket – first, by Bradman’s Australians, and then by Clive Lloyd’s West Indians. It is good to aspire to that kind of greatness, but no indictment if we fail to achieve it. Certainly, this Indian team is beginning to look as good as some of the very good teams of the past three decades – Australia under the Chappells in the 1970s; Pakistan under Imran Khan in the 1980s.

There is one thing that encourages me most about the way this team is playing now. And that is the way we fought back from the brink of defeat in Chennai. When people think of the Aussies at their peak, the tendency is to think of an all-conquering unit. But in fact, the Aussies have stuttered often this past decade, especially with their top-order batting. Their strength has been their ability to bounce back consistently from perilous situations, either due to terrific lower-order batting (Steve Waugh; Gilchrist; Symonds) or the ability of their bowlers to take a slew of wickets quickly (Shane Warne most often, but even Mitch Johnson against South Africa yesterday). India has consistently failed on that count, but this Indian side seems made of sterner stuff. The run chase in Chennai was remarkable; but this stomach for a fight was seen as early as Lord’s last year, when Dhoni hung on for a draw that eventually helped us win the series. And it was seen again in Bangalore against Australia, when the lower-order batting of Bhajji and Zak not only pulled off an unlikely draw, but set the stage for our subsequent dominance in the series.

There are those who will trot out the fact that beating Australia was not such a big deal, because they aren’t the team that they were. They may not be the team that they were, but they are still a terrific team – just ask South Africa, who has within two days surrendered positions of strength twice to already be under the cosh against the same Aussie team that has a 0-3 record against us over the past 6 Tests. And there are those who will go on about our “poor” record overseas – this is, at this point, just an empirical falsity, since India’s record overseas over the past decade is second only to Australia’s. Certainly, we were undone by Ajantha Mendis’s genius in Sri Lanka this summer; but I am fairly confident that we won’t be the last team to be similarly undone. This is a very good team playing some inspired cricket; and the Chennai win is really something to rejoice in.

Of course, much is being made of Viru and Sachin, and rightly so. But for me, there were three other little moments in the game that were absolutely central in shaping the outcome. The first was the brace of boundaries that Yuvraj played against Graeme Swann as soon as he came in. At 224 for 4, Yuvi walked in to a high pressure situation. Another wicket, and England would have been well on top. Yuvi was playing quite possibly for his Test match future. Even in one-dayers, he is a shaky starter. Even when set, he is shaky against off-spin. Swann was bowling beautifully, getting drift, turn and unpredictable bounce. Yet, in the second or third over he played Swann, Yuvi played what to me was the shot of the match – going on the back foot and playing with a horizontal bat, as if playing the square cut; but placing the ball perfectly between extra cover and mid-off. There was little flourish to the shot, it was almost like a back-foot defensive block; but the timing was so good that it raced to the fence. He followed that up with a trademark Yuvraj slog-sweep over square leg for another boundary.

Those two shots were amazing, but the crucial moment came in the following over, when Pietersen immediately removed Swann and replaced him with Monty. And at that point, in my mind, the tide of the game had turned irrevocably. At the best of times, Yuvi prefers playing left-arm spin to off-spin. In this game, Swann was bowling far better than Monty. But most of all, it sent a strong signal – that at the first sign of aggression, even from someone as vulnerable as Yuvraj going into this innings, KP was going to do what the batsmen wanted him to do. It was an indication of the defensive mindset that ultimately cost England the game. Much criticism has been directed at Monty for his defensive bowling; but in fact, KP’s captaincy was no less defensive. It wasn’t just the bizarre placement of a deep point after lunch on Day 5, a position that had no earthly use whatsoever; it was also the removal of Swann. Had Swann been persisted with, there is no question that Yuvi would have tried targeting him some more, and perhaps another quick 20 or 30 would have been conceded. But I’m willing to bet that, the way Swann was bowling, he would quite likely have picked up Yuvi’s wicket as well. It was all very well for Flintoff to jibber and jabber at Yuvraj and try and psyche him out with chatter. But when it came to actions, England had already conceded that they were afraid of Yuvi, and at that point, the mind games had definitively been won by India.

The second and third key moments came on the 4th afternoon. Much has been made of India’s batting heroics, but the fast bowlers again delivered when it mattered most, and that post-lunch session, when England added just 57 runs in spite of being in a position of such strength, really cost them. The first thing that made that possible was Flintoff’s early dismissal. Strauss and Collingwood had provided the perfect platform. But that platform needed to be taken advantage of, and what England really needed on Strauss’s dismissal was a quick 30 or 40 to take the game out of India’s reach and set up a strong declaration. Matt Prior has looked good with the bat, but it was really Flintoff who has the ability to play that kind of game-defining innings. Yet in the space of four deliveries, Ishant Sharma had Flintoff on his way. That little spell won’t be remembered as much as Ishant’s tormenting of Ricky Ponting through the year; but that is only because Ponting survived long enough to be tormented. In fact, that over to Flintoff was about as perfect an over as Ishant has bowled all year – a couple of perfect short balls to set things up, then the perfectly pitched good length outswinger in the corridor of uncertainty that Flintoff just had to play at. Over and over again this year, Ishant has produced the perfect little spell at just the right stage of the game to get the key wickets, and this was another instance of that. A look at statistics and figures will tell us that Harbhajan Singh is India’s highest wicket-taker for the year. But while Bhajji has wheedled meaninglessly for many overs, it is Ishant who has taken wickets that matter when they matter. He has truly done for us what great strike bowlers do for their teams. Even half an hour of Flintoff at the crease, and we could have been looking at a very different ball game.

The third key moment was Zaheer Khan’s bowling to the tail. Wickets of Swann and Harmison don’t count as much as those of a Flintoff; but given how often tails have thwarted India in the past, it is good to see the way Zak bowls at the death. Most notable, of course, is the stunning reverse swing, which was in evidence against Australia as well, and which is every bit as prodigious, and accurate, as Wasim Akram’s was in his prime. It was well remarked that the Indians got reverse swing while Australia didn’t. What is more surprising to me is the amount of reverse swing India is getting compared to England. The Brits are apparently amongst the masters of contemporary reverse swing, and indeed the likes of Flintoff used reverse swing to devastating effect to win the Ashes in 2005. Yet there wasn’t a whimper of reverse swing from any of the England bowlers, not even Flintoff, throughout the Chennai Test.

At the end of the day, as ambassadors and sportsmen, England can hold their heads high. England is normally a team I love to hate; but they played with character, and even, for brief moments, with flair. They certainly gave us a much tougher ride than Australia did. But at the end of the day, they seemed as afraid of winning as India used to do in the 1990s, and consistently failed to press on from positions of strength. And ironically it was KP, who talks a tough talk, who was often hesitant to really turn the heat on as captain when he could have. This means that for a team that has a lot of talent and depth, England’s last significant performance still remains the 2005 Ashes – there is remarkably little to show since then.

India, on the other hand, seems in a zone. They may yet lose in Mohali - in the past, highs like this have been followed by arrogance and complacency – but there is clearly enormous self-belief, and enormous belief amongst team members in each other. What is really exciting for me about the Chennai win, though, is that it has combined two very different styles of winning that India has employed in the past. The one, most common through the early 2000s, was the Miracle Win, where the unbelievable heroics of one or two men would create victories that would be etched in the memory forever. Kolkata 2001 is the classic example here, but there were other less remarkable ones scripted through the 90s on the backs of a Tendulkar or Azharuddin or Kumble special, or in the 1980s because of Kapil Dev’s single-handed heroics. The problem with such victories was that they were rarely replicable – they made India one of the most dangerous teams in the game on their day, a team to always fear; but 9 times out of 10, one would be left hoping for a miraculous performance and instead be given a mediocre one.

Over the past couple of years, however, the Miracle Wins have been replaced by the Team Effort. The three wins against Australia this year were all comprehensive, but none of them was marked by a single stand-out performance. In some ways, that bodes better for the long-term future of the team; but it is not the stuff of dreams that the Indian cricket fan thrives on. Indeed, the aftermath of the recent win against Australia was almost a certain anti-climax – as in great show, chaps, but what do we tell the grandchildren? Chennai, however, had it all. Viru, Sachin and Yuvraj played out of their skins, and the first two at least played knocks the likes of which they might never be able to repeat; but at the same time, every single person other than Dravid made some significant contribution that went towards this win. It is that combination of individual brilliance and solid teamwork that makes this win so special for me.