RevSportz Comment
In the eyes of millions, Indian cricket came of age at Eden Gardens in March 2001, with a victory after following-on against Steve Waugh’s Invincibles. But it was other victories, away from home, in the same decade that truly established that Indian cricket was on an upward trajectory and not inclined to look back. Each was unexpected, as much a bucking of the odds as the World Cup final triumph in 1983, and because they came in the format where the better team invariably prevails, they became benchmarks for future generations to follow.
At Headingley in 2002, Sourav Ganguly disregarded the bowler-friendly conditions at the toss and decided to bat. Rahul Dravid’s painstaking century, and a valuable 68 from Sanjay Bangar set up the game, and punishing hundreds from Sachin Tendulkar and the captain himself led India to a famous innings win, with Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh taking 11 wickets in the match.
Less than 18 months later, India gave up 400 runs in a day and 556 in total in the first innings at the Adelaide Oval. But with Dravid and VVS Laxman reprising their Kolkata heroics by adding 303, and Ajit Agarkar summoning up the spell of his life (6-41), India eked out a four-wicket win almost as unreal as the Eden success.
At the Wanderers in Johannesburg in 2006, Mickey Arthur, then South Africa’s coach, asked for pace and bounce. Dravid, again, and Tendulkar gritted their way through the toughest phase, before Ganguly made a sprightly half-century to lift India to 249. Sreesanth’s immaculate seam position, with support from Zaheer Khan, did the rest, as the hosts were skittled for 84 in their first dig.
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In Perth in January 2008, on the heels of the Monkeygate fiasco that nearly saw the tour cancelled, Australia unleashed Shaun Tait, The Wild Thing, at the WACA in Perth, alongside Brett Lee, Mitchell Johnson and Stuart Clark. But with Dravid, who else, making a gutsy 93, and Tendulkar contributing 71, India put 330 on the board. Their ‘pedestrian’ pace attack of Irfan Pathan, RP Singh and Ishant Sharma then took 14 of the 20 wickets to fall in a famous 72-run victory. The highlight was a teenage Ishant’s spell to Ricky Ponting on the fourth morning, with the Australian skipper put through the wringer before being put out of his misery.
An emphatic 10-wicket win in Hamilton set up a first series win in New Zealand in over 40 years (2009), but equally noteworthy was the magnificent rearguard action that saved the next Test in Napier, spearheaded by none other than Gautam Gambhir, the current coach, who batted 643 minutes for his 137.
Nearly two years later, on a lightning-quick Kingsmead deck, Sreesanth and Zaheer were to the fore as South Africa were routed again. Sreesanth’s bouncer which had Jacques Kallis jackknifing like a puppet on a string remains one of the most-played clips among Indian Test aficionados.
The impact of those wins
What each of these victories did was ensure that the Virat Kohli-Cheteshwar Pujara-R Ashwin-Ajinkya Rahane-Rohit Sharma generation didn’t travel with the baggage or inferiority complexes of the past. Starting with Umesh Yadav and Mohammed Shami, there was a steady influx of genuinely quick bowlers into the XI, culminating in the inspired decision to give Jasprit Bumrah his red-ball debut at Newlands in January 2018.
Over the past decade and a bit, India have won at venues as diverse as Lord’s, the MCG, Trent Bridge, Newlands, Adelaide, the Gabba in Brisbane and now the Optus Stadium. These results are no longer seismic shocks. And while no one takes them for granted, it’s now accepted that Indian cricket has what it takes to fight fire with a flame-thrower.
In the 20th century, India played 157 Tests away from home, and won just 14. Of those, two came against Australia’s Packer Era second-stringers, and one apiece in Sri Lanka — before the glory years — and Bangladesh. The first three overseas wins were all against a New Zealand then considered the international game’s basement side.
This century, India now have 47 wins from 132 overseas Tests. If you narrow it down to the last decade alone, they have won more (23) than they’ve lost (18) on foreign fields. Nearly half of those (11) have been in the SENA countries where India once went as lambs to the slaughter.
Ganguly may have frequently polarised opinion both as a player and leader, but it’s impossible to overstate just how much that brave call at the toss in Leeds all those years ago transformed Indian cricket. There have been hiccups aplenty along the way, but there would have been no Optus Stadium celebrations without the spadework done by Dravid and Bangar under the cloudy Yorkshire skies.
Also Read: How a Durga Puja gave India’s Test team its Bumrah X-factor