Winning Test Cricket In India Remains One Of The Hardest Tasks In World Sport

The stats say it all. Since their series defeat against England in late 2012 – a triumph that grows by the day and strengthens the legacy of Andrew Strauss’ side – India have won a remarkable 35 of 43 home Tests and lost just two matches.

They have not been beaten in a series and 15 of their wins have been by an innings. Their latest thrashing was perhaps one of India’s best considering the hype coming into the blockbuster against an in-form Australia, who entered with high hopes.

Those dreams evaporated within three days of a nightmare in Nagpur, where Australia’s ham-fisted batters were clueless against India’s brilliant spinners Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, who have conjured the same old magic tricks plenty of times against them before.

Australia were perhaps too clever by design when they dropped in-form middle-order batter Travis Head in a selection bombshell at the toss. The axing of Head, who has dominated in his home conditions but struggled notoriously in South Asia, had some merits and did reinforce their belief of playing specialists for the conditions.

But this loomed as extremely risky given Head’s form and ability to change the momentum of an innings very quickly. Wasn’t it worth at least seeing if he could rattle India’s attack with counter-attack much like Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist famously did in the series-opener in the epic series of 2001?

It was a gamble that backfired with his replacement Matthew Renshaw failing and one wonders whether Head’s confidence is shook ahead of inevitably returning for the second Test.

The selection misfire, of course, wasn’t solely to blame for Australia’s disastrous performance, where the batters struggled other than Steve Smith, who dominated in Australia’s game effort in 2017.

Led by debutant offspinner Todd Murphy, Australia clawed back into the contest with the ball before being snuffed out by Jadeja and fellow spinning allrounder Axar Patel. The bespectacled Murphy was Australia’s silver lining with a seven-wicket haul in one of the best ever debuts in Test history.

The 22-year-old outbowled veteran Nathan Lyon, one of the greatest offpsinners of all time, to prove worthy of his selection and ensure much needed depth in Australia’s spin stocks – a flaw for some time.

Murphy looms as Lyon’s successor and if he can maintain his heady start then he might start threatening the position of his mentor.

Apart from Murphy, Australia had no other positives and will hope they get some reinforcements in allrounder Cameron Green and quick Mitchell Starc. This was a nightmare for Australia, who had started their previous Test tour in India on an unexpected winning note to kick-start an epic series where they fell short but lost few admirers.

That effort feels somewhat underappreciated, perhaps due to India’s momentous subsequent victories Down Under, and an outlier because Australia has not been close to challenging in these harsh terrain in the past 15 years.

Their latest nightmare was perhaps predictable given India’s decade-long stranglehold at home. They are almost impregnable with a trio of high-quality spinners bowling on tailor made surfaces to heighten India’s advantages.

Even with India missing spearhead Jasprit Bumrah and wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant, both major thorns of Australia in recent series, it hardly mattered as the one-sided Test lasted a measly eight sessions.

It feels very much like shaping up as a whitewash akin to Australia’s embarrassment a decade ago, prompting the sacking of then coach Mickey Arthur.

Unless the beleaguered visitors can regroup quickly and defy one of the toughest challenges in all of sports.