Before New Zealand’s triumph, England won there in 2012, and Australia in 2004 – all in a similar time window. Last time India lost in February/March, when Australia now customarily visits, was in 2000 to South Africa. Before that, you have to go back to 1987 and Pakistan’s 1-0 win over five Tests for another such outcome.

That earlier timeslot, by the way, was also when Australia’s previous series win in India, way back in 1969, took place. So, too, the unforgettable Tied Test in Chennai in 1986, where Dean Jones and Greg Matthews wrote their names into folklore. Australia’s 2027 tour is to take place largely in February.

Also of interest was that the Sri Lanka games, while ending in defeat, helped the Black Caps to acclimatise to weather and pitch conditions. It is harder for Australia to make a similar play because India series now span all of five Tests, but still worthy of consideration.

In Rawalpindi, meanwhile, the undulating rhetorical journey of England took another twist. Stokes, having had no personal impact on the series after coming back from a hamstring tear, spoke of how his team needed to “fight” for longer periods to succeed in the spinning conditions Pakistan flipped to after losing the first Test.

Stokes’ words were, in fact, much more classical in tone for a defeated Test captain. His predecessor Joe Root had often said similar things. England are, then, coming to terms with how their “revolutionary” approach only goes so far. Five days of Test cricket require steel as well as style, function as well as flair.

Pleasingly, though, there was no hypocritical anger about the conditions. Instead, Brendon McCullum admitted surprise at Pakistan not leading with a strength like spin more readily in the past.

“When teams come to England, ideally we play on the surfaces that we’re more accustomed to, which allow our strengths to really flourish and maybe paper over some of the weaknesses as well, which every team naturally has,” McCullum said.

“I’m a little bit surprised it’s taken Pakistan as long as it has. Because when you go to Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, the ball is always going to turn. It’ll be interesting to see over the next couple of years whether they persist with these types of services, but certainly there are no excuses from our point of view. We had our chances, and we ran second.”

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Pakistan and New Zealand both relied in large part, too, on a skill set that Australia must do more to foster.

Mitchell Santner’s left-arm spin was good for 13 wickets in Pune. While Matt Kuhnemann is the best such spinner available in Australia and did creditably in India in 2023, he needs more competition in red ball ranks.

Muhammad Ali, of course, went on to win a pair of epic encounters against both Foreman and Frazier in the following years, brutal bouts that secured his legacy. But there was richness in how the journey was unpredictable, much as Test cricket is better off for New Zealand and Pakistan striking blows for teams outside the financial muscle of the “Big Three”.

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