It’s a long way from Edinburgh to Guwahati. With a storming performance in the sixth match against India on the far eastern tip of India, the Australian cricket team effectively completed an exhausting sequence of 19 limited overs internationals spread across 80 days on three continents.

In that time they won a one-off match against Scotland in Edinburgh, bested England 6-1 in a seven games in Britain, lifted the Champions Trophy in South Africa and have now defeated India on subcontinental soil with one match to spare, despite a squad falling apart through overwork.

In all they have won 15 out of 19 and lost just three-times, with one match rained out when they looked likely winners.

While there is little question too much cricket is presently being played, particularly in its two truncated formats, the achievement of Ricky Ponting’s team to come through this passage of continuous cricket victorious cannot be overstated.

The common, and largely true, conclusion many have drawn is that an excess of cricket devalues its meaning.

Here however is a team achievement that has only been heightened by that same excess, for it has forced Ponting and his players to perform at or beyond their limit.

To win in India, even as five players were sent home due to injury and replaced by increasingly callow reinforcements, is an effort to rank high on any list of 50-over victories.

A successful tour of this country is no easy thing even when a full squad is available, given the extremes of climate, pitch conditions and atmosphere, plus the assorted ailments and illnesses that invariably arise on the subcontinent.

Last year’s Test touring party had more time to prepare and more players to choose from, but arrived home from an eight-week visit having not won a single match.

So for a ragtag team to cap an unrelenting year in all formats – and more recently a mad sequence of 50-over games – with a series victory in Guwahati, is meritorious indeed.

One match remains in Mumbai, but given all that has gone before, it is a game in which the players could be forgiven for relaxing.

© AAP 2012

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