Quite an against-all-odds scene

With bragging rights in the last two Tests of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy belonging to India, it is ironical that Australia enjoy the favourites tag due to injury issues in the opposing camp

Brisbane is generally where Test battles start in the Australian season. But in the summer of 2020-21, the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series ends here. The reason for this can be attributed to the pandemic. These are different times. What has stayed the same before this Brisbane Test is the fact that the hosts are tipped to crush their opponents at a venue where they have enjoyed considerable success.

Every season, we are reminded by the Australian press that West Indies was the last overseas team to win a Test at Brisbane. That was in 1988.

In fact, no sub-continental team has emerged triumphant in a Test at the Gabba although India came close in 1977 when they fell 16 runs short of their target against Bob Simpson’s Australians. Sunil Gavaskar scored 113 while chasing 341 and the pundits expected another Tied Test on the Gabba turf at one stage. “For excitement and drama it (the 1977 Test) would rank with the Brisbane Test against the West Indies, the Adelaide Test and the final Test of the same series,” wrote Simpson in Sportsweek’s World of Cricket.

With the current series tantalisingly hanging at 1-1 and with the bragging rights in the last two Tests of the rubber belonging to India, how we wish we could have high hopes of a series win. But the Indian team is ravaged by injuries and it is quite an against-all-odds situation. 

India’s main fast bowler (Jasprit Bumrah) is out of the Test with an abdominal strain. He joins left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja (dislocated thumb) in a crowded non-playing group, while chief spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has a back problem that he managed to shrug off during his match-saving innings at Sydney on Monday. Fellow batting hero Hanuma Vihari’s hamstring could well prevent him from playing his maiden Gabba Test.

One feels most for Bumrah. He has troubled the Australian batsmen as expected and has helped add a special layer of admiration for India’s fast bowling stocks. His absence from the Brisbane Test is akin to a kid watching a candy store display and not being able to get in because of a toothache.

The Indian team have off-field frustrations as well — strict quarantine regulations laid down by the Queensland government, no entry into the swimming pool, no room service and unavailable housekeeping.

All this makes skipper Ajinkya Rahane’s job tougher. Plus, he has got to rediscover the magic of Melbourne from a batting front (he was dismissed for 22 and 4 in Sydney). 

I asked famous West Indian sports psychologist Dr Rudi Webster as to what would be his advice to the Indian team in such a scenario. This is what he said: “Rahane seems to be motivating the players well and getting the best out of them. If he continues like that, the replacements will step up to the plate and make important contributions. 

“The team’s self-belief and self-confidence must be high. Self-belief, self-motivation and self-discipline are key factors at this level. The discipline the team demonstrated in the second innings was tremendous. The Test will be very competitive. The team that stays calm, handles the pressure and executes the basics better will triumph.”

Leave aside the best combination in the given circumstances, the Indian team needs 11 fit men on the field. 

The squad members also require a motivator; a role which their head coach Ravi Shastri can perform well. Knowing him, he won’t allow the team to look for sympathy. In fact, he’ll encourage them to hold their heads high while walking out to do battle. Last Test, one last big effort, he’ll say to them. He will not bring this up but it’s a fact that Shastri performed creditably in the last Test of several series. In his debut one, he bagged five wickets in an innings at Auckland in 1981. In the sixth and final Test against Pakistan at Karachi in 1983, he scored a hundred while opening the innings with captain Sunil Gavaskar.  The five stitches on his split webbing were removed only a few days before the game. 

Another final Test hundred was scored against the pace-strong West Indies at Antigua later that year. And I remember watching him score a century against Australia at the Wankhede Stadium in the finale of the Tied Test series of 1986-87.

Shastri’s supreme captaincy skills were on display at Chennai in 1988 when India claimed its first win in 10 years against the West Indies. 

A big hundred against England at The Oval in 1990 made him the first Indian Test opener to score two hundreds in a series on English soil. India didn’t end up losing in all these instances.

Understandably, Brisbane is not the place Team India would like to be in. The fairer option would have been to play the final Test at Sydney, logistics permitting, of course. But the battle lines are drawn and the soldiers must make the most of this encounter. One thing is certain, the team won’t leave Australians shores in disgrace.

mid-day’s group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance. He tweets @ClaytonMurzello.

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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper

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