Opinion
For the timid who wished for a rain induced draw, the cumulus didn’t arrive. Instead came an accumulator to weather a fifth day attack and lay the foundation for a win.
Cheteshwar Pujara stood like a rock to blunt every wave in an ocean of hostility until the seascape became a placid lake for Rishabh Pant to take India home on a fast, exhilarating speed boat.
If at all there was an un-impregnable fortress at the Gabba, it regularly changed ends to the side of the wicket from where Pujara took guard. If the Gabbatoir was a witness to Pant’s massacre of years of Aussie domination, he did so perched atop fortress Pujara.
The fall of the fifth wicket for India, especially on Australia tours, usually brought nervousness and panic to the crease and the beholder.
Yet, yesterday, after the fortress of the Gabba was breached by a Pat Cummins in-swinger and Mayank Agarwal left to a misjudgment, it was the BCCI’s long overdue system to produce fine cricketers that took guard and played with an intent for success.
George Washington may have said “99 per cent of failures come from people who make excuses”, but it was India who took the no excuses approach to change the one per cent winviz odds, for victory, at beginning of day, to a near certainty when Sundar hit that six.
It was a full-on frontal attack to victory from a still evolving system of a sleeping giant that is barely awakening to its potential. Even more than Pujara, more than Pant and Shubman Gill, the victory was a flowering of BCCI’s investments in something that at least somewhat resembles a system.
From the one-off geniuses that gave us the occasional thrill, we finally have a sputtering factory that is just beginning to roll off products from the assembly line. Trained at various pace academies, fire tested at various regional leagues, annealed with international competition at the IPL, and some sent on overseas inspections in tours, they arrive to the Test arena with no fear to take risks and back themselves.
Often enough they had overcome tremendous hardships to even get to play cricket. Parental loss, disadvantaged backgrounds, economic hardship, name it and it had been seen in some form or the other and overcome by grit and determination.
With such familiar acquaintance with adversity what to say of the relative friendliness of a Cummins bouncer from 22 yards? Wear it on the chin like life taught them? Or hook it for six like life taught them? All schools of life were admitted to the factory and then infused with steel.
Numbers seven through eleven yesterday, all arrived as factory replacements.
Barely expected to be used for the journey, they were the payload mainly for experience and environmental acclimatisation. Stunningly, when pressed into service, at a moment’s notice, they delivered key performances.
Cheteshwar Pujara avoids a bouncer from Pat Cummins. (Photo by Patrick HAMILTON / AFP)
Five wicket hauls, key wickets, the defining first inning partnership after six had fallen, the key wickets of Steve Smith and David Warner, all extracted with accoutrements not expected to see day light.
Yet, they shined as if the spot light belonged to them all along. Even as Mohammed Siraj jumped on Pant after the winning blow was hit, he but not us had forgotten his crucial five wicket haul.
Thangarasu Natarajan smiling as he laid one hand on the trophy after three key wickets in the first, Navdeep Saini with an injured hamstring running the winning run, Shardul Thakur jumping with joy as he ran, padded, to the field where he top scored in the first innings, and Washington Sundar immortalised, forever, in the frame of a glorious hook shot.
Now, for a billion people, the defining snapshot of Washington is not on the US quarter but on a photograph that bridges earth with one leg, the sky with the other, and arms that sent the ball from uncertainty to destiny beyond the square leg boundary.
What isn't technically art, but *feels* like art?
Washington Sundar's hooked six ????#AUSvIND pic.twitter.com/prhMLN0Aab
— ICC (@ICC) January 19, 2021
Gill, of course. The factory produces all types. Serene at the crease, definite in movement, with time to play the pull, and the attitude to hit sixes square on either side off the fastest bowlers in any hemisphere. Took 20 runs off a Mitchell Starc over and made no bones of it.
Alongside the fortress at the other end, they paired like volleyballers. Pujara boosting, by getting hit, and Gill spiking, by just hitting. It was not a one-two punch as much as a take-one-punch from one end and punch two boundaries from the other.
And so the platform was laid for Rishabh. Everyone knew the speed boat would idle for a bit while Pujara blunted the waves. And then it would be set to ludicrous mode.
Where it would end, no one could know. But how it would go, everyone did.
The thrill ride of sheer guts and self-belief that kept one at the seat’s edge, marvelling and agonising, was worth it in itself. That it ended in an unimaginable victory added sweet relish to those that savour history.
Tim Paine might have quipped “can’t wait to take you to the Gabba.”
Really, India should have been saying to Tim, “Welcome my son, welcome to the machine.”
For amidst the sheer difficulty of everyday life, India finally has a cricket factory that produces joy to millions.
The bad news for Tim is that the factory has just begun production. The good news for India is that the factory will get scary good in a matter of time.
It’s only going to get better for India.
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