For the first time in recent years, India went in with one spinner at the Sydney Cricket Ground, which is known to assist bowlers. And the results are for everyone to see. Australia were 348 at the loss of two wickets against India in the final Test match of the four-match series.
It was a strange selection of 11 players who took to the field on Tuesday morning. There were three pacers on a flat Sydney pitch along with a lone spinner in R Ashwin and then part-time bowler Suresh Raina had to bowl ten overs.
From the pacer, there was no swing to unsettle the Aussies openers in Chris Rogers and David Warner. The Aussie duo punished Indian bowlers as though they were up against under-age players.
Perhaps, a Karn Sharma type of spinner could have saved India’s day in the middle. Or more disciplined bowling could have done the trick. Since none of the above happened, India are already on the back-foot in this Test match.
With the bowlers showing no character like in previous Test matches, India’s chances of winning this Test match from here are practically non-existent after conceding so many runs.
Yes, this Indian team has a quite a few batsmen who have shown character in the ongoing Test series, but that hasn’t salvaged the situation for this side. India’s chance of doing well here was also squandered after new Test captain Virat Kohli lost the all-important toss. If India would have batted first, things could have been scripted differently. But you can’t blame any captain for losing a toss!
And you can’t blame the Indian captain for the mess which the bowlers have created all the time. Earlier, the so called critics who are far away from reality, used to blame former Indian Test captain MS Dhoni for losing Test matches away from India.
Now that Kohli is only two Test matches old, he must have realised that captaining a side with a lousy bowling attack isn’t easy. As a captain, Dhoni tried as many things as he could and was right behind the stumps to judge the match situation in the best possible way. But his critics thought that Dhoni was a defensive captain. What can any captain do if your bowlers are giving away runs without taking wickets?
India’s spin strength was always something world cricket spoke highly about in the yesteryears. But now Indian spinners have the worst bowling averages outside Asia, which goes to show Indian spin bowling is only good at home.
At least the statistics suggest so. But two spin bowlers from either end could have worked. The last time Indian spinners were successful in Sydney was when both Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh took 12 wickets in a Test match. To support Ashwin, there was no one from the other end.
India was pinning hopes on Bhuvneshwar Kumar to turn the tide, but he had come in fresh after nursing an injury and expecting him to deliver straight away is unrealistic. The less said about the debacle, the better. The only person who is benefitting from this is Australia’s new Test captain, Steve Smith, who is on the verge of scoring his 4th century in the series on day two of the Sydney Test.
