So, that's why we love Test cricket

As I sit and write these words, the adrenalin is slowly seeping from my veins. The raw excitement has gone. I’m feeling somewhat deflated. Yet there is elation to be found in my despair.

This is what Test cricket tragics live for.

What a match! Congratulations to Virat Kholi’s men. You were the better team and thoroughly deserved your triumph.

In truth, other than those first few hours – when the visitors forgot why they were wearing their whites – the Indians always had our measure. Yet, the Aussies hung in there. We fought right up until the most acrid of bitter of ends. And for that display of resolute resistance, I am proud.

It was a contest.

Throughout the frustrating ebb and the ebullient flow, washing across five gripping days of tight Test cricket, there was a struggle at hand; a sight to behold.

Just look at the margins: India by 15 runs in the first innings and India by 16 runs in the second. It was that tight.

As in Dubai two months ago, the Aussies were refreshingly defiant in their fourth innings; batting tenaciously for over 100 overs in pursuit of a distant goal which many commentators declared was unreachable.

I have read that this is the first time in Test history that every partnership in an innings exceeded 15 runs, while every batsman faced at least 30 balls. Though I find it surprising that no other team has achieved that feat, it is a measure of the defiance which permeated the Australian innings.

Every batsman fought hard. The odds were always against them. But they fought hard anyway.

Aaron Finch opens for Australia in the first Test against India. (Photo by Daniel Kalisz – CA/Cricket Australia/Getty Images)

Truth be told, there was always one number too many in the Aussie wicket column. Throughout that tense final day, I kept muttering to myself – like a demented old man in a café – ‘if only we had another wicket up our sleeve’.

And every time I thought, ‘this is getting real’, a wicket would fall and I’d concede that all hope was now lost, only to witness another courageous batsman dig in and start scoring runs – only to repeat the cycle just as my outrageous hopes began to crystallise as unexpected reality.

Yes, ultimately, Australia lost. And, yes, I have grave concerns for the outcome of this series.

But, for now, I choose to celebrate the fight.

And I am going to tell anybody who will listen that this is why Test cricket can never be allowed to die.

Test cricket must be preserved without ever counting the cost.

No other form of the game – nay, no other sport on this planet – can generate this special kind of inexorable, slow release, spine-jangling, nerve-tweaking, heart-gasping, palm-sweating, tension-snapping, life-affirming, rising excitement of Test match cricket!