Satire
The first Test between India and Australia in Nagpur has ended in an unlucky defeat to the visitors, who spent most of the match running around like a team with its Head cut off.
Here’s the report card for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy opener.
Grade: D
Heading into the first Test, all the talk was, tediously, about pitches.
Is there anything duller than pitch chat? Sure, of course there is. The world’s a dull place, despite the best efforts of Prince Harry.
But if pitch chat isn’t the very dullest thing in the world, it’s in, like, the bottom one percentile. A tediously wearisome topic.
If we must talk about pitches, then why not make it more interesting, in the same way we’ve made it more interesting to hear people talking about renovating properties, finding dates, and getting celebrities out of here.
Here’s my pitch (no, the other kind) for a new reality TV show: Different wickets are prepared each week and judged by journalists from various cricket nations, each with their own unique biases.
One by one, the pitches are eliminated until only one remains. That winner is… Pitch Perfect.
A Test match is then played on it.
Grade: F
The other thing that people suddenly started talking about before the series even started was how stupid it was for Australia to have so many left-handers in their XI.
As one of nature’s opposite-monkeys myself, I found this offensive, but all the chatter got into Australia’s head. Or, more precisely, Australia’s Head, as Travis was startlingly replaced by the right-handed Peter Handscomb.
Having gone full Henry VIII with the Head-axing, the tour selectors then also went full Murphy’s Law on fellow ink-smudger Ashton Agar, replacing him with bespectacled debutant Todd Murphy.
Great wordplay selection from Australia. But quite startling to see all of social media suddenly enraged with Pat Cummins for being insufficiently supportive of the left.
Matt Renshaw of Australia walks off after he was dismissed by Ravindra Jadeja of India. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
Grade: B+
Once the match started, the reverse-wretches who had escaped Cummins’ cruel cackhander-culling were swiftly out, with both Usman Khawaja and David Warner skilfully negating the India spinners by being dismissed by the quicks in the opening overs.
After that, Ravindra Jadeja took over, tearing through not just the vomit-mitts, but also Australia’s right-handers, as the visitors were all out on the first day for 177.
I’m annoyed that I so regularly forget how much fun Jadeja is. The bloke is genuinely mesmerising with ball, bat, and in the field. Probably a fascinating dinner guest as well, who always brings top tier wine and/or conversation.
Jadeja feels like somebody I should think about every day, and yet I know as soon as this series is over, he’ll drift from my thoughts once again. It’s my problem, not yours, Ravindra.
The best of the Jadeja wickets was Matt Renshaw, promoted to bat at five, who was instead out first ball.
One can only assume that if Head had played, he would have drilled his first ball straight back down the pitch and run out Smith at the non-striker’s end? It was quite literally the only way he could have done worse.
Grade: B-
India cruelly flicked the pitch status to ‘NOT doctored’ once it was their turn to bat on it, and amassed a total of 400 in reply.
This was despite the best efforts of debutant Todd Murphy, who steadily worked his way through the Indian line-up, mostly by himself.
KL Rahul, Ravichandran Ashwin, Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli all fell to the bespectacled debutant, who had his corrected sights on taking all ten wickets in the innings.
Would captain Cummins help him to the goal? Surely, if he simply removed Murphy’s glasses every other over, he could bowl him at both ends, with the fool umpires none the wiser.
Sadly, Nathan Lyon ruined everything, as he so often does, the awful man. He dismissed Suryakumar Yadav with one that turned between bat and pad and knocked the stump out of the ground, removing most of the fun from the innings.
Murphy had to settle for a mere seven on debut, including the wicket of Jadeja with one that went straight on.
It’s a delivery that I desperately hope he calls the ‘oddball Todd ball’.
India may have foolishly thought they were dominating the Test with their enormous first innings lead, but they weren’t the side that unearthed Todd Murphy, and must therefore feel as if they’ve missed a trick.
Grade: B
Needing 223 to avoid an innings defeat, Australia started poorly, with Khawaja again out cheaply.
Would Cummins promote himself to number three and hit a century? Really lead from the front? It’s the kind of thing Allan Border would have done.
Instead, Cummins showed his tremendous patience, remaining at his usual position of eight; and was in, batting, within about half an hour anyway.
Because Ashwin tore through the Australian top order, with wickets tumbling all over the place.
Great stuff from Cummins’ men, who comfortably ensured I’d be able to watch Australian Survivor tomorrow night. Ironically, through their inability to survive. Much appreciated.
Still, it’s fair to say Australia were unlucky. If this Test had been played in Sydney, it would’ve been rained out.
Instead, it was in Nagpur. Fine margins such as these can decide a series.
At nine wickets down, Steve Smith would have been Jadeja’s final victim of the Test had it not been for a no ball, which allowed him to continue on.
A turning point in the Test? No, as it turned out.
Instead, Smith ended up being the not out batter, as Australia were eventually rolled for 91.
Should the rest of the Australian batting have simply batted like the second-best batter the nation has ever produced? On reflection, you’d have to say ‘yes’.
Still, on the plus side, 91 is way more than 36, so based on recent Border-Gavaskar Trophy precedent, Australia are 2.5 times more likely to win this series than India were a couple of years ago.
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