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The Boxing Day Test between Australia and India ended in a thrilling draw. Here are the ratings for five pulsating days of Border-Gavaskar Trophy-regaining action.
Catching
Grade: D
During the lunch break on Day 3, radio comedians, Logie winners and faulty measurers of gap years Hamish Blake and Andy Lee put on a demonstration of how to drop outfield catches.
It was a segment that seemed to go on forever, with the enthusiastic Australian team joining in the duo’s fun well into Day 5, and also back in time to Day 2.
Nathan Lyon dropped a couple. Chris Rogers missed one too. Peter Siddle wasn’t even playing but still somehow found time to drop a catch. And Brad Haddin and Shane Watson both watched as an edge flew between the two of them (although that one was clearly Steve Smith’s catch).
In between those dropped chances, Haddin took a couple of diving screamers, prompting speculation that he should start keeping from leg slip. Although Haddin’s showiness did rob Watson of a recoiling, eyes-closed certain classic catch. Shocking selfishness from the keeper. Rightfully dumped as vice-captain.
Michael Clarke
Grade: C+
Injured former captain Michael Clarke made his commentary debut during this Test. To Meg Lanning’s great surprise, Clarke’s commentary was mysteriously not chaperoned by three experienced female commentators who wouldn’t let him get a word in. Weird.
Two major positives from Clarke’s commentary.
Firstly, it provided a fun game for listeners at home to keep an ear out for which Australian player Clarke didn’t introduce as “a great team man”.
Secondly, at no point did he succumb to the habit of calling cricket balls ‘cherries’, ‘nuts’, ‘pills’, ‘rocks’, ‘tomatoes’, ‘Mogwais’ or whatever it is that James Brayshaw is calling them these days.
A solid start. However, I’m predicting him to retire hurt with a strained rising inflection by the third day of the Sydney Test.
Shaun Marsh
Grade: B+
I am extremely fortunate to be completely indifferent to Shaun Marsh’s career, a career which apparently inspires great emotional extremes in most other cricket fans. This indifference is a blessing that means I get to enjoy people’s fury both when he fails and when he makes a decent score.
Still, I must admit that even my indifference waned a little and I felt a twinge of sympathy for him when his captain’s cruel non-declaration cost him the wonderful milestone of a 99 not out.
Unlucky, Shaun. Better luck next time.
Virat Kohli’s anger
Grade: A+
It’s a well known fact that Virat Kohli’s anger fuels world cricket. There is nobody in world cricket more confrontational than Kohli. (Excluding most of Australia’s Test, first class, grade and park cricketers, obviously.)
Kohli was in rare form this Test, sledging in the field while batting, during press conferences, and presumably at team dinners and autograph sessions as well.
In between the rage, he also batted exquisitely, putting on a 262-run partnership with Ajinkya Rahane in the Indian first innings. (Although, without wanting to sound like too much of an old fogey, I remain nostalgic for the days when massive Indian batting partnerships went on for a day or more.)
So it was excellent work from India on the final day to lose their first two wickets as quickly as possible to get Kohli in almost immediately.
From there, he guided his team to the safety of tea, before falling fell first ball afterwards to man of the match Ryan Harris, who was backing up his outstanding batting in the Test (74 and 21) with vital wickets at crucial times. (Or possibly crucial wickets at vital times. It can sometimes be hard to tell.)
Nevertheless, the fact that Dale Steyn is a better bowler than Ryan Harris underlines the fact that Steyn must be (and, indeed, is) spectacularly, astonishingly good.
Declarations
Grade: C-
By the start of the fifth day, all the speculation was around when Steve Smith would declare. The debate served as a Rorschach test as to what fans saw as the basic unit of Test cricket.
Is the Test the basic unit of cricket – should players be striving to win every possible game, even at the risk of losing it? Or is the Test series the basic unit – with individual Test results secondary to the primary goal of winning the series?
Most of the debate about declarations seem to stem from people having fundamentally different points of view on this issue, with neither perspective being indisputably correct.
Personally, the only reason I could see for Australia to declare was to stop everybody from talking about whether Australia should declare. Alternatively, India might have taken the game into their own hands and attempted to snare three more wickets. (Ha, no. I’m kidding, of course.)
In the end, it turned out that Smith declared too late, as India held on for the draw. This of course raises the question as to who the selectors will now choose to replace the disgraced skipper in the next Test.
It will probably be either George Bailey, who has the advantage of being an established ODI captain who has won every Test he’s ever played or Glenn Maxwell, who has the advantage of being Glenn Maxwell.