The currently ongoing, 4 test series between the Indian men's cricket team and the Australians started off with a great deal of confident swagger and confidence from the Indians. Much was made of the fact that the Aussies planned not to sledge Virat Kohli and that the fact that not having won in India since 2004 would be weighing on the visitors minds. The crushing and unequivocal defeat in the first test had to have been a bitter pill for the much vaunted Indian team to swallow.
The Indian batsmen were only able to make 105 and 107 in their two innings – this aggregate of 212 runs in the entire match is India's lowest at home. The previous lowest was 247 versus England in 1977.
He took six wickets in each of the two innings of the first test, to restrict the host team to the miserably small totals, that ultimately meant a crushing 333 run loss to the Australians. He achieved the second best figures for any visiting bowler in India since 1980, when Ian Botham had taken 13 wickets in one match.
The position seemed fairly precarious in the second test as well, with the visitors taking a strong first innings lead (274 runs) over the hosts (189 runs).
While it was fascinating how bowlers dominated - not a single innings total reached 300 in the series – the Indians seemed to be facing another drubbing at the hands of the visitors.
It is the Australians who are thought of as the most natural at sledging in the game. However, this time it was the Indian players in the news for sledging. His toilet break remark to Matt Renshaw is famous; there were frequent exchanges between him and Steven Smith as well. Former Aussie player Ian Healy felt the need to criticize Virat for the sledging.
By the middle of the test match the Indian team seemed fated for another humiliating defeat at home, but several factors came together at the right time and the hosts won by 75 runs. K L Rahul’s half century, the mature looking partnership between Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara, and Ravindra Jadeja rising to the occasion and dismissing Smith, Renshaw and Peter Handscombe were positive takeaways.
The contest is hugely exciting now with the series poised evenly and the third test at Ranchi – starting on 16th March promising to be another cracker of a game.
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