RevSportz Comment
“I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, the greatest fulfilment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle — victorious.”
It’s more than half a century since Vince Lombardi, the legendary American Football coach, passed away, but his words still ring true across playing fields all over the world. In cricket, however, even a draw or a tie can sometimes feel like victory. The walking wounded that were the India XI in Sydney nearly four years ago would attest to that.
Virat Kohli had left the side after the 36 all out in the first Test in Adelaide, for the birth of his first child. Mohammed Shami broke his arm there. Umesh Yadav did his calf muscle midway through the second Test in Melbourne. KL Rahul sprained his left wrist while practising after that game.
In Sydney, Ravindra Jadeja broke his left thumb during his 28 not out in the first innings. Though he was padded up, the chances of him even being able to hold the bat properly if required were next to nil. On the final morning, India lost Ajinkya Rahane in the second over, leaving them 102-3, still 305 adrift of victory. The tortoise, Cheteshwar Pujara, and the hare, Rishabh Pant, had the onerous task of steering India home. Lower down the order, the out-of-sorts Hanuma Vihari was fighting for his future. R Ashwin was standing on the viewing balcony, his back so stiff he couldn’t even tie his own laces.
Ranged against that was the most prolific bowling quartet in history. Mitchell Starc had the X-factor and the left-armer’s angle, while Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins would strangle you all day with their metronomic accuracy. As for Nathan Lyon, he had tormented India enough in the past.
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For a while, hare became tortoise, with Pant eking out five runs from the first 34 balls he faced. From the next 30, he slammed 45 to get to another half-century. Pujara, who would always march to his own tune, needed 170 balls to get to the landmark. But with Tim Paine dropping catches off Pant and other mishits not going to hand, India got to 250 within an hour after lunch. Was a repeat of Trinidad 1976 on? Surely not.
And then, Pant fell, going for one big hit too many. He had batted 181 minutes for a thrill-filled 97, but his exit meant India had to recalibrate. From an unlikely victory, a draw became the main aim. But with tea looming, Hazlewood produced one of the balls of the series to bowl Pujara. After 285 minutes of defiance, he was gone for 77.
Then, Vihari pulled up going for a run. It looked like a hamstring pull or tear, and a bad one at that. He could no longer run. Ashwin could barely walk. Up in the pavilion, Jadeja would struggle to even put on batting gloves. This was Australia’s moment.
Only, it wasn’t. The can’t-run-can’t-bend duo saw off 42.4 overs of high-quality bowling. How they did it is hard to explain. Ashwin got hit so many times it felt like a drum solo had been played on his gloves, ribs and arms. There were countless plays and misses, edges that didn’t go to hand. Behind the stumps, Paine — who already had a first home series defeat against Asian opposition on his captaincy CV — was losing his composure. His sledging of Ashwin — “At least my teammates like me, d***head” — was picked up by the stump microphones and heard around the world.
But puerile slurs don’t wickets take. Ashwin batted 190 minutes and saw off 128 balls for his unbeaten 39. Vihari’s vigil for 23 not out took 47 minutes longer. Each man knew that his series was almost certainly over, but the intense pain seemed to give them clarity of thought. No retreat, and certainly no surrender.
The same Lombardi once said: “The greatest accomplishment is not in never falling, but in rising again after you fall.” India, and especially the quartet of Pujara, Pant, Ashwin and Vihari, did that in Sydney in 2021. Akash Deep and Jasprit Bumrah have given them hope of a similar great escape in Brisbane, aided by the inclement weather. If India cling on, as they famously did at the SCG, that could be the spur they need to spring back to life in a series where they have been a distant second-best since Perth.
Also Read: Echoes of Ashwin-Vihari in Sydney in defiance shown by Akash Deep and Bumrah