The Border-Gavaskar Test Series between India and Australia was a hard fought affair, and although India finally won 2-1, it could have gone either way. Australia did everything right, but played poorly for 2 sessions on the third day of the 4th Test in Dharmasala, and that cost them the series.
So the final frontier still remains unconquered for the Aussies. They have won in India only once in the last 48 years and have lost 7 series in a row.
The Indian team under Captain Virat Kohli, have had a remarkable home season, having won every series played so far. Everyone knows that Kohli is a brilliant batsman – but over the last 12 months, he has shown himself to be an inspirational captain, a general who leads from the front.
What are the positives for Australia in this series? Well, Steve Smith made three hundreds, and has established himself as the best batsman in world cricket, even better than India’s Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara, and England’s Joe Root.
There can now be no doubt about that. Smith is really, really good, and he seems to be the odds on favorite to break Sachin Tendulkar’s record for the most test runs and highest number of hundreds.
Australia can take heart in the fact that they have really competed well in this series. Before the series started, the likes of Harbhajan Singh and Sourav Ganguly were talking about a 4-0 or 3-0 result for India. That didn’t happen. 2-1 is certainly respectable.
Indeed, after winning the first Test in Pune, Australia did look like walking off with the series, and would have won had they handled India’s Ravichandran Ashwin well in the second Test at Bangalore.
Australia have unearthed a terrific young fast bowler in Pat Cummins. As long as he stays fit, he has a long career ahead of him. Cummins is fast but disciplined – he bowls with pace and in the right areas. This makes him a really good quick bowler, much like India’s Umesh Yadav.
Talking of Yadav, he has emerged as one of the best fast bowlers in the world this season. He is already talked about as the greatest fast bowler ever produced by India. He hits 140kmh regularly, swings the ball at pace and does look like the real deal.
It is really wonderful for India fans to have a genuine fast bowler from their country who is considered to be amongst the best in the world. The next few years will see a contest between Umesh and Australia’s Mitchell Starc for the title of the world’s best fast bowler, much like the one between Dale Steyn and Mitchell Johnson a few years ago. That is a great feeling for Indian cricket fans indeed!
Of course, there was a lot of bad blood in this series. Virat Kohli may have a mad following in India, but he is hated in equal measure in Australia.
The Australian media has been running a vicious campaign against him for the last 2 months, calling him the “Donald Trump of World Cricket”. Well, looks like Virat had the last laugh, although he did precious little as a batsman, averaging under 10 in the 3 matches he played.
Now we look forward to the tenth season of the IPL, the IPL 2017, which is only a week away, with the first match to be played on April 5th. Stay tuned for all the latest IPL action here on IndiaBet.org!
