Will Oz come first this time too?

The 202223 BorderGavaskar Trophy series opens in Nagpur today You already know that But did you know that Australia have won more opening Tests than India in their rivalryThe Steve OrsquoKeefetriggered first Test win in Pune six years ago is still fresh in memory While the bowling honours went to the leftarm spinner Steve Smith probably played the knock of his life through his second innings 109The India vs Australia Test story on Indian soil began in 195657 when Ian Johnson brought his team here for a threeTest series against Polly Umrigarrsquos Indians Legspinning allrounder Richie Benaud inspired by Englishman Jim Lakerrsquos approach in the 1956 Ashes decided to shorten his runup at nets just before the first Test of the 195657 series in Chennai He went on to claim seven and one in the Test while pace ace Ray Lindwall fought illness to return figures of 743 in Australiarsquos winThree years later Benaud was captain and his team in India clashed with G S Ramchandrsquos men who took a Test win off the Australians at Kanpur The first Test of that series was in Delhi where India were bowled out for 135 on the first day The Aussies replied strongly with 468 which included 114 by Neil Harvey The skipper and Lindsay Kline combined well to bowl out India for 206 in the second innings with opener Pankaj Roy scoring 99 of those runs The Kotla spectators according to Ken Mackay in his book Slasher Opens Up reacted violently to that Indian performance and resorted to bottlethrowingMackay wondered whether the strong public reaction led to Indiarsquos much improved performance in KanpurAlso Read An infamous season alrightBobby Simpson was in charge of the 196465 tour and his team triumphed in the first Test at Chennairsquos Nehru Stadium over M A K Pataudirsquos side The Indian skipper carved an unbeaten 128 out of his sidersquos total of 276Australia fell short by only three runs for a 400run second innings total and that powerful performance set India a target of 333 Openers M L Jaisimha and K S Indrajitsinhji fell for ducks and it was left to Hanumant Singh to battle on He was ninth out for 94 Veteran Vijay Manjrekar threatened to be a thorn in Australiarsquos side on Day Five but his innings of 40 ended when batting star Norman OrsquoNeill dismissed him with a leg break that took the edge of his bat to Simpson at slipSpearhead Graham McKenzie was Australiarsquos hero with 10 wickets on what journalist Dicky Rutnagur described in The Cricketer magazine as a ldquodead wicketrdquoThe visitors despite the victory were reported to have been unhappy over the umpiringA snippet in 200 Seasons of Australian Cricket mentioned how when ldquoone anonymous Aussierdquo was asked to comment on Pataudirsquos innings he replied ldquoWhich one I thought his third was his bestrdquoThe next Test in Mumbai ended in an exciting and famous twowicket win for India followed by a draw in Chennai which meant the series honours were shared 11McKenzie the hero of 196465 claimed five wickets to ensure India didnrsquot score impressively in the first Test of the 196970 series at the Brabourne Stadium Keith Stackpole smashed a hundred against high quality spin and after conquering dehydration Bill Lawryrsquos team ended up winning 31In a bizarre bit of programming it took another 10 years for Australiarsquos next tour of IndiaThe second string 197980 Australian side surprised India a bit with their 390 first innings total which included centuries by Allan Border and skipper Kim Hughes in the seriesopening draw at Chennai But five Tests later Sunil Gavaskarrsquos team became the first Indian side to beat Australia in a seriesAustralia maintained their record of not losing the opening Test on India tours through the tied result which opened the threematch 198687 series in ChennaiThe Test had several heroes but no bigger than the late Dean Jones for his courageous double hundred compiled in extreme heat exhaustion and dehydration His captain Border copped an expletive from his new onedrop batsman when he used sarcasm to get a sick Jones to continue batting In Cricket As I See It Border reveals exactly what he told Jones ldquoOkay mate off you go Wersquoll get someone tough out here Wersquoll get a Queenslander meaning next man Greg RitchierdquoIn 2004 not far away from that Chepauk ground Jones told me in an interview ldquoWhether he Border meant what he said or not but that was an example of telling every player in the squad that these are the standards I expectrdquoWhen Border learnt that Jones was admitted to hospital later that day he thought to himself ldquoBloody hell Irsquove killed himrdquoThe next time India and Australia clashed in a Chennai Test was for the BorderGavaskar TrophyIt was also the game where India broke the jinx of not winning an opening Test against their southern hemisphere opponentsAustralia soon got back to their habit of drawing first blood in the epic 200001 series at Mumbai and repeated their early brilliance by winning the Bangalore Test of the 200405 BorderGavaskar TrophyThe first Test of the 200809 also at the Chinnaswamy Stadium was drawn while India pocketed both the opening Tests in the 201011 and 201213 rubbers That was before they played on that Pune pitWill Australia bag another seriesopener or can India open their account with a triumph that creates a great chance to win their fourth IndoOz Test series in a row India canrsquot be too far off for this unprecedented streakmiddayrsquos group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stanceHe tweets ClaytonMurzello Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper