The odds were unequivocally in their favour. The last time that India had been defeated in a Test was 19 matches ago in Galle. On home soil, one had to go back more than four years and 20 games for their previous loss.
Adding Australia’s sequence of nine consecutive losses in Asia, the first Test in Pune seemed like a foregone conclusion. However, what transpired simply defied belief as the visitors conjured up a sensational performance to trounce India by 333 runs within three days.
With Steven Smith taking control and Steve O’Keefe slicing through their batting line-up, Virat Kohli’s troops received an unexpected hammering at the hands of a well-prepared outfit. Let us take a look at five major reasons why India capsized to a humiliating loss in the opening Test.
1. Anything that could go wrong went wrong
Well, it had to happen at some time. As dominant as their recent form had been, the unavoidable Murphy’s Law has always lurked in the shadows. It almost seemed like this match was perfectly set up for India to enact their first slip-up in a long time.
Right from the moment skipper Kohli lost the toss, India found themselves pushed on the back foot. Their body language worsened with each session.
Though a few tight 50-50 calls did not go their way, they certainly did not help themselves by giving a precise demonstration of how not to use the Decision Review System (DRS). With all three departments of their game coming to a grinding halt at the same time, the situation was tailor-made for Australia to capitalise.
2. Physical and mental resolve pushed beyond controllable limits
Fatigue, both physical and mental, becomes the obvious downside in a long home season featuring a world record 13 Tests. From July to the start of this game, India had played a whopping 14 Tests (including the away series in West Indies), eight ODIs and five T20Is over the course of the last seven months.
Despite the match being the start of a high-profile series, they looked burnt-out and were simply going through the motions.
The first indication came when Mitchell Starc pummeled their bowlers for a game-changing fifty at the end of the opening day. In sharp contrast to their previous tussles, the Indians seemed fazed at the sight of a challenging situation. The appalling fielding was a direct result of flagging minds and tired bodies.
3. Pune pitch spectacularly backfiring on India
On first look, the Pune pitch was designed to suit India’s strengths – enchanting spin bowling and wristy batting. However, the extreme amount of turn and bounce on offer actually narrowed the gap between the two teams, particularly their spin attacks.
India’s lead spin duo of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja have been weaving webs around opposition batsmen for quite some time. They only need a hint of turn to find their rhythm and run through batting line-ups. On this surface, a simpler approach paid richer dividends.
All Steve O’Keefe had to do was make the batsmen play on a regular basis. While some deliveries hit the rough patches and turned, most came straight on with the angle to confound Indian batsmen. On the other hand, the copious amount of turn meant India’s spinners repeatedly beat the outside edge with not much luck.
This was a classical case of a strength turning into a weakness.
4. Batting not quite convincing on turning tracks
Over the years, Indian batsmen have been acknowledged as among the very best when it came to playing against quality spinners on turning tracks.
The likes of Vijay Hazare, Gundappa Vishwanath, Sunil Gavaskar, Mohammad Azharuddin, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman took on countless prominent spinners and left them gasping for breath with their decisive footwork.
Not to take anything away from their rich haul of Test victories, but the current batting line-up’s ability to handle spin on viciously turning pitches very much remains a work in progress. While they have been using their vast array of shots to pile on the runs on surfaces not turning square, their unconvincing footwork came unstuck once again on conditions highly conducive to spin bowling.
5. Determined Australia reap rewards for hard work
Even as plenty of Indian and Australian cricketers wrote them off completely, the visitors came into the series with confidence accumulated from their exhaustive training at the Center of Excellence in Brisbane and the ICC Academy in Dubai.
With Cricket Australia taking note of the side‘s recent travails on the subcontinent, the players were put through the paces in an earnest attempt to become better travellers to the region.
Unlike the preceding touring contingents, Smith’s team have the self-belief that they can do something special in conditions completely different to what they have been experiencing at home. Their determination to defy the odds has not only caught India off guard but also set the stage for a riveting series.
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