For a Last Laugh Down Under

THE SIMPLE YET essential sound that is human laughter isn’t usually associated with India playing cricket at international stadiums, wholly drowned out by roaring celebrations and screaming stands and anthemic music thumping on oversized speakers. But if you listen closely, the chaotic build-up to the upcoming Border Gavaskar Trophy (BGT), a five-match Test series to be played in Australia starting November 22—perhaps the most pivotal assignment for India’s red-ball team in a long while—has been set to the soundtrack of two sets of players giggling on the field, in two near-empty stadiums, heard from nearly four years apart.

The most recent of those sets, though emanating from the throats of about 20 happy New Zealanders at a rapidly emptying Wankhede Stadium last month, will always give Indian cricket fans a reason to frown. For the first time in a three Test match series or more, India had been blanked in a Test series on home soil, hence putting in jeopardy the team’s chances of qualifying for the World Test Championship (WTC) final next year, which they were all but booked to make before the New Zealand series had begun. But the Indian team, and its supporters, will try to focus their hopes and attention on the peals of joy echoing around the vacant Gabba from three years earlier, when, Down Under, the Indian team pulled off nothing short of a miracle.

In the throes of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020-21, a side that was struck by an epidemic of injuries of sorts beat Australia in Australia with a team that was altogether different in its composition in the final Test in Brisbane from the one that began the BGT in Adelaide, where a full-strength side was humiliated. Shortly after getting bowled out for a total of 36 runs at the Adelaide Oval, then-captain Virat Kohli left those shores for the birth of his first child, saddling over the burden of doing the impossible onto the shoulders of his deputy, Ajinkya Rahane. So, without as much as a shrug and with the likes of a debutant in the second Test in Melbourne as the leader of his bowling attack by the time the fourth Test Brisbane came along, Rahane did just that: the impossible. That 2:1 tour result ensured that India had won their second successive Test series in Australia. It also ensured a cascading effect of brilliance over the next three years or so for the country’s cricketing ecosystem across formats, where they reached their second straight WTC final, followed by the final of the 50-over World Cup and a trophy at the 20-over World Cup. But here is the deal with great eras, they do not blur into oblivion as much as they crash to a halt. The Kiwis will believe that they applied the first punctuation. Can the Aussies, who have not beaten India in a Test series in a whole decade, home or away, believe in jotting out a more permanent full stop?

Pat Cummins, leader of the hosts, ought to think so, given that the Indians once again find themselves far from full-strength. History has a way of repeating itself in sport, so this time it is regular captain Rohit Sharma who will miss out the first Test in Perth, due to the birth of his second child. Apart from the leader-opener, No 3 batsman Shubman Gill will also be missing in action at the Optus Stadium, after he hurt a finger while fielding at slips during a practice match. While they are expected to play a role as the tour progresses, fast bowler Mohammed Shami won’t. Neither will a few heroes from the previous Test series on these shores in Rahane, Cheteshwar Pujara and Hanuma Vihari, all of them long sidestepped for one reason or the other.

Which then only gifts opportunities to personnel new and old. Can this be the series where KL Rahul, the opener-turned-No 5 who will possibly turn opener again in Perth come Friday, finally cement his place in the long format? Or will some among the likes of young Yashasvi Jaiswal, Devdutt Padikkal, Sarfaraz Khan, Nitish Kumar Reddy and Dhruv Jurel provide a bedrock for the batting order the way Rahane, Pujara and Vihari did on their previous visit? Fortune also smiles on fast bowlers Prasidh Krishna and Harshit Rana, one or both of whom could well partner up with Jasprit Bumrah, the leader of not just India’s bowling attack but the whole unit in Sharma’s absence. Bumrah will of course have the great resource that is Virat Kohli to lean on, who has captained at least a part of the previous three Test tours of Australia, dating back to 2014.

At 36, Kohli returns for his fifth Test tour Down Under, and returns a certified legend of these lands, with seven Test hundreds scored in Australia. In many ways, all of Indian cricket will be leaning on him too, hoping for him to turn the tide on his recent performances. But Kohli knows what it takes to score big runs on these bouncy pitches with the threat of losing his place from the side, having done it on his very first tour of Australia in 2011-12. Back then, with the overwhelming fear of being dropped before the third Test in Perth, a 24-year-old Virat top-scored for India in both innings at the WACA, before notching up his maiden Test century in the following Test in Adelaide.

Yet, India lost that match and (hence) the series 0:4, leading to the immediate retirements of Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman post-Adelaide, followed shortly after by Sachin Tendulkar. This forced Indian cricket to dig deep and depend on the future generation who, after a period of transition, would go on to win every Test series at home for roughly 12 years, with away series wins in every country barring South Africa. The two jewels in that crown, without a doubt, were the back-to-back series wins in Australia, the only series wins since the first Indian team shored up at the harbour of Sydney back in 1947.

This Indian side will need to win a third in a row if they are to make the WTC final at Lord’s next June. And not just win, but win convincingly, with a 4:0 scoreline, to fully ensure direct qualification and not put their collective fates in the hands of mathematics and other Test nations. Quite like in 2011-12, when Kohli and Ravichandran Ashwin were just a few Tests old respectively and Sharma not yet a Test player (although he was in the wider squad), this team too is filled with ageing greats of the ilk of Dravid-Laxman- Tendulkar playing together in Australia for one final time; and they are of course Kohli, Ashwin and Sharma, all in the evening of their storied careers. They have each seen, from close quarters, the gloom of 2012 and the grandeur of 2021.

In 2025, come the fifth and final Test match in Sydney, where will their fortunes lie? Will they leave the country that has given and taken so much from them in sorrow and misery? Or will they exit in mirth and celebration? Will they be smiling, arms around the other comrades at the end, having managed the proverbial last laugh? If so, even years later, such peals of laughter always tend to echo with such ferocity.

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