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Australia have endured plenty of nightmarish collapses on the subcontinent but the manner of their latest capitulation to India’s spinners – slumping from 1/61 overnight to 113 all out in 90 minutes and 115 balls of self-destruction – may make this six-wicket defeat the toughest of all to swallow.
India’s triumph secures them the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, and ensures their run of eight years without a series defeat to Australia home and away will continue. But as much as they won the match, their opponents could hardly have made life easier for them.
Captain Pat Cummins’ dismissal, bowled by Ravindra Jadeja first ball to a wild slog across the line, told a story of a team whose mindset had been thoroughly scrambled.
“I’m probably as much to blame as anyone else there,” Cummins said. “Two big things we talk about is the tempo of the game and the method. Maybe at times a little bit too high tempo.
“I’d rather be high tempo than low tempo though, if those wickets are being difficult, but maybe the method went a little bit away from what we planned to do at times.”
Heading into Day 3 in Delhi with their noses in front after an engrossing first two days, Australia would have hoped for more gutsy batting like they had exhibited on the first day’s play, with any target of more than 200 sure to be fiendishly difficult to chase.
Instead, Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin feasted on a myriad of aggressive shots, the Aussies’ plan to bring the fight to the star spin duo quickly dissolving into panic.
Jadeja simply laughed after the game when he was asked whether it was a good idea to try sweeping his bowling in India.
“Disappointing, because this game was a similar story to Nagpur (in the) second innings; felt like we were in a really good position for most of it, probably a few runs short in the end,” Cummins said.
“I don’t think shock is the right word, we’ve played a lot of fast paced Test matches, especially over here, one session can seem a lot longer than two hours.
“I’d say just more disappointment, knowing that over here these opportunities don’t come up all the time, especially being relatively in front of the game, feeling like that game was there for the taking.”
Pat Cummins leads his team off the ground after they were defeated by India on day three of the Second Test at Delhi. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
A defence-first approach may have backfired just as spectacularly in the first Test in Nagpur, but surely there was a middle ground between that and the gung-ho embarrassment the visitors subjected themselves to.
Cummins was far from the only culprit; Steve Smith, Matt Renshaw, Alex Carey and Matt Kuhnemann also fell to ill-judged sweeps, to add to Usman Khawaja falling likewise on the evening of Day 2.
All up, nine of Australia’s batters mustered 35 runs between them, less than what either Marnus Labuschagne (35) and Travis Head (43) managed individually.
That pair, along with first-innings hero Peter Handscomb, were the only ones who could safely say they copped deliveries too good for them; Head feathering an edge behind to an Ashwin special, Labuschagne castled by a Jadeja offering that kept low, and Handscomb nicking a sharp-spinning ball from the same bowler to slip.
With incredible figures of 7/42, Jadeja, who claimed his final six wickets for just four runs to wrap up the tail, but it was Ashwin who truly started the rot, removing Head, Smith – for the second time in the Test – and Renshaw as Australia slumped from 2/85 to 7/95 in a matter of minutes.
While the pitch had plenty of demons, mostly in its uneven bounce, Carey and Kuhnemann of the lower order clearly didn’t take heed of the conditions when their ambitious reverse sweeps left their furniture disturbed.
With the ball, Australia continued to fight hard in defence of 114, and had they had more runs to defend would have well and truly given themselves a sniff of victory.
However, all they could muster was four wickets – including perhaps the last straw for KL Rahul, unluckily caught by Carey after a full-blooded pull ricocheted off Handscomb at short leg – with Cheteshwar Pujara marking his 100th Test with the winning runs.
Captain Rohit Sharma sacrificed himself for the milestone man after a disastrous mid-pitch mix-up, while Lyon added Shreyas Iyer to Rahul for a seven-wicket match haul when his attempt to end the game quickly saw him hole out to deep mid-wicket.
Todd Murphy also continued to impress, winkling out Virat Kohli after beating him in flight and seeing Alex Carey whip off the bails. Apart from that, though, there were few if any highlights.
There are positives to come out of this match; after an unseemly thrashing in the first Test, it was an improved fight from the visitors in hostile condition, with their first day batting and bowling throughout well and truly making a game of it.
However, all of it counts for nought thanks to 90 minutes of madness. A rare winning position in India, and a way back into the series, has been swept away in a flash – literally.
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