A vehicle hit the bridge our train would soon cross, an apologetic announcement informed us, and thus our journey to the MCG would abruptly terminate. This obliged the sudden disgorgement of passengers, at least half of whom were Indian cricket fans, and the creation of a panicked bottleneck at the bus bay that was incapable of neatly accommodating all of us pilgrims.

It was the final day of the Boxing Day Test, and Yashasvi Jaiswal and Rishabh Pant were still batting. India, having calculated that a run chase was needlessly risky, needed only to survive until stumps. Australia, disadvantaged by India’s possession of the Border–Gavaskar Trophy and thus needing to win the series outright, would have to bowl their opposition out – something that seemed increasingly unlikely as Jaiswal and Pant’s partnership extended into its third hour.

There are moments when a city’s energy seems transformed by a sporting fixture, and so it was on this overcrowded bus. The final day was balanced nicely and there was the added ambience of our collective anxiety in the delay in getting there. On the bus several fans held phones or radios in their laps, listening to the game’s broadcast.

Approaching tea, India were still three-for. Strangers assessed the game’s odds together. An Australian victory seemed unlikely. I agreed.

None of us got to the ground until tea. That left just one session of the match and seven wickets for Australia to get. Not quite impossible, but close. I cursed the delay and the fact I’d arrived just when it seemed the match was over.

The likely outcome – a draw – seemed confirmed when, after play resumed, Travis Head was deployed to throw down his part-time spin. Here, surely, was Australia’s tacit surrender – a sign a gentleman’s handshake was imminent and that the captains would mutually concede a stalemate.

I was wrong. Head’s use as a bowler was an attempt to quicken Australia’s dawdling over rate – what’s more, it was Head’s typically unthreatening deliveries that unseated the partnership when Pant impetuously holed out on the boundary. Runs weren’t the metric to judge the Jaiswal–Pant collaboration. Rather, it was time at the crease, and together they’d absorbed more than 30 overs.

The score was 4-121 with roughly 30 overs remaining. Australia had a chance, but an unlikely one. Less than four overs later, Ravindra Jadeja’s wicket fell. Spicy. The very next over, Nitish Kumar Reddy was gone. Six down, with 25-odd overs to bowl. It was more than spicy now and the large crowd was electrified. Between the members’ bay and the adjacent stand jammed colourfully with Indian fans lay the great concrete trench where players enter or depart the ground – happily, because it separated fans who were becoming increasingly excited and mutually fond of showing fists, middle fingers and miming lewd acts.

The MCG was alive. When Jaiswal was given not out after obviously gloving the ball to wicketkeeper Alex Carey off Pat Cummins’ bowling, the lengthy wait for the DRS review was absurdly dramatic. When the “Snicko” graph displayed a flat line, the adjacent bay erupted as if the World Cup had just been won. But logic prevailed: the ball’s conspicuous deviation off the glove was the preferred evidence over the spike-free “Snicko”, the decision was overturned and the heroically stubborn Jaiswal was dismissed after having faced more than 300 balls.

It was now fait accompli. Australian fielders circled the striker with thrilling density, and in the final over before the new ball became available, Nathan Lyon trapped Mohammed Siraj LBW. Australia had secured a famous victory and taken seven wickets in one session. My pessimism was invalidated and a Test match that had fluctuated beautifully had the ending it deserved.

The Australia–India Test series, resolved finally in Sydney last weekend in Australia’s favour 3-1, was deliciously dramatic and strengthened my resolve to lobby for the prohibition of all touring sides bar India.

In truth, the drama was largely achieved in sum – the first three Tests produced an Aussie smashing, an India smashing and a rain-induced draw. But we witnessed the glimmering apogee of Jasprit Bumrah in what, for me, must be the best display of bowling I’ve seen produced by a tourist here. Above Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis. Above Curtly Ambrose. He’s about as good as it gets.

As we saw Bumrah’s waxing, we also saw the waning of Virat Kohli and captain Rohit Sharma – the latter dumped for the final Test, a humiliation Sharma publicly redefined as his “opting out” of the game – in much the same way, I suppose, as Joe Biden opted out of recontesting the United States presidency.

There was also, of course, the waning of Australian stars – notably, the veterans of its top order. Marnus Labuschagne fought valiantly against his own form, so poor in the opening Test, but questions linger. Steve Smith made two centuries and was his side’s second-highest scorer for the series, which complicated the popular tale of his decline. Were these the late hiccups of genius? The numbers suggest so, but Smith still possesses great faith in his ability. He was dismissed in Sydney one single shy of 10,000 Test career runs, a milestone achieved by only three other Australians.

Then there’s Usman Khawaja, who, publicly at least, remains charmingly calm in the face of his presumed athletic twilight. Khawaja turned 38 during this series, an extraordinary age for an opening batsman, and he rarely looked comfortable. But in the final Test, and after many fitful overs, he found his feet and timing and made a significant 41 runs.

After Australia’s demolition in the first Test in Perth, there was, predictably, hyperbolic despair and snide suspicion that Cummins was a soft and unworthy successor of all gritty captains past. It wasn’t unlike the criticism that befell the team – and Cummins specifically – in India during the 2023 World Cup, when they lost their first two matches (and the five one-day matches preceding the tournament). And yet in India and against India, Australia won the World Cup final – and Cummins’ captaincy was a big reason why.

There was the same contempt of the team, and of Cummins’ captaincy, when the side was embarrassed in the first two Tests in India that same year. It wasn’t merely contempt but a kind of feverish transformation of our side’s cricket form into a grand moral narrative of national decline. Unhinged and also premature: Australia would respectively win, then draw, the final two Tests. A few months later, they would then beat India at Lord’s for the Test Championship.

There was legitimate and sober criticism of Australia following that first Test in Perth – the top order is shaky and old and we’re at a generational hinge point. That happens.

And so, for all the attention cast upon the slower feet and dimmer eyes of our first three or four batsmen, we caught a glimpse of the future. Teenager Sam Konstas debuted in the Boxing Day Test, opening the batting before some 90,000 people, and proceeded to bat like an optimally drunk man plays pool.

His chutzpah was astonishing: within only a few overs, Konstas was attempting ramp shots against one of the best fast bowlers to have played the game. More astonishing is that, having conspicuously failed several times, he wasn’t chastened by his failure and kept trying – eventually hitting three ramp shots for three boundaries off a single over.

Even in an age where Test cricket’s batting is influenced by the theatrical aggression of Twenty20, this was preposterous: a teenager on debut, against a wizard and the backdrop of a sold-out MCG, playing trick shots only a few overs into his Test career.

Iconic stuff, but the jury was out on where to land on the reckless/heroic question. Having scored 60 in his first innings and, in doing so, fracturing the mind of Virat Kohli, who sought to clip the teenager’s wings by hip-and-shouldering him during a change of ends, I was inclined to the latter.

Adding to his iconic performance was the strange snarl he assumes when facing a ball – a curled lip, like a grizzled gunslinger in a duel – and the effect is comically tempered by the teenaged bumfluff that dusts his upper lip.

All good, but I confess my fondness for the lad dwindled a little come Sydney when he batted as if it were the last over of a T20 match. In his second innings at the SCG, on which the entire series hinged, he was dismissed for 22 after skying an absurdly decadent slog. One might debate all day long the amount of liberty one concedes to singular and youthful talent. But that shot was plain dumb.

In Sydney came a much older debutant: Beau Webster. Replacing Mitch Marsh as the side’s all-rounder, the Tasmanian scored a half-century in his first innings, carried his bat in the second, and played with a confident elegance. He also took a wicket as the relief bowler and some sharp catches. At 31, he’s waited some time for the baggy green, but the selectors didn’t err in finally giving him one.

In Sydney, a five-day Test match was over halfway through day three. This had much to do with a dramatically mischievous pitch and its unerring exploitation by Scott Boland, an incredibly gifted bowler who must sometimes feel like Stuart MacGill once did.

Chasing just 162 to win, Australia stumbled sufficiently to quicken heart rates – and on such a devilishly fickle pitch, it wasn’t that small a total. But India was without the great Bumrah, scratched from the final innings with a side strain, and the gulf between him and his fellow bowlers was starkly revealed. If India had had him? Well, who knows.

Unsurprisingly, Bumrah was named the player of the series. But it was Pat Cummins – perhaps the most underestimated Australian captain we’ve ever had – who had the final laugh. 

RELATED READING

Sport

Australia’s humiliating first Test defeat against India

Martin McKenzie-Murray

The first Test against India started promisingly enough, but Australia’s humiliating capitulation raises tough questions for selectors over the form and age of supposedly star players.