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India v England 2nd Test 2021 Chennai
India v New Zealand 1st Test 2021 Kanpur
The Border-Gavaskar Trophy is unarguably the most coveted trophy contested by the Indian cricket team in the Test cricket arena. With the Aussies set to tour India in early 2023, I had my eyes set on catching an entire Test in this hugely awaited series.
Once the schedule was announced upon considering all the venues, I decided to travel to Delhi to witness the entire 2nd Border-Gavaskar Test from the stands of Arun Jaitley Stadium in the national capital of India along with the same pal who accompanies me for virtually every game who resides in Delhi itself who gave me shelter and the privilege of witnessing the Test in a manner as if I were simply going from my own home to watch every day’s play.
DAY 1
Having been for a couple of Test matches in India in the past, I was actually overwhelmed with the good amount of spectator turnout that too on a working day for this Test which is slightly unusual in this part of the world for a red ball game. A couple of hundreds of Australian spectators were present as well which on whole, made it a terrific atmosphere for Test cricket.
Cheteshwar Pujara in the presence of his family received his 100th Test cap from the veteran Sunil Gavaskar in a special glass box to commemorate this achievement.
The coin fell in favour of Australian skipper Pat Cummins, who had no hesitation in inviting his troops to bat first on a surface that was expected to deteriorate as the game would go on. The opening pair of David Warner and Usman Khawaja gave a solid start to the touring side to begin the proceedings of the Test.
The flip side to India’s sheer dominance in home Tests is that whether one is watching the game on their screens or from the stands, Indian fans become reckless when their bowlers fail to get any wicket, be it only for an hour. Such has been the scenario with the Indian bowlers at home that every ball seems like an event, and it always feels like a wicket is just about the corner. Due to this, recklessness for a wicket was quite evident among the Indian fans present in the stands during the drinks break of the opening session of the Test as Australia hadn't lost a wicket by then. Right after the drinks break, Australia lost the services of David Warner who nicked one to the keeper off Shami.
It appeared like it would be Australia’s session, but wizard Ravichandran Ashwin managed to get rid of both Marnus Labuschagne and Steven Smith in a matter of 3 deliveries to allow Indian fans to breathe their usual going into the lunch.
In the second session, Mohammed Shami got rid of Travis Head for cheap. The Pakistan-origin Usman Khawaja looked dangerous on the other end and looked set for entering into a triple-digit score but that wasn’t meant to be as a stunner from KL Rahul at point ended his inning abruptly at the individual score of 81. The wicket-keeper Alex Carey departed soon after without troubling the scorers for nought. The pair of Peter Handscomb & Pat Cummins took the score to 199/6 at tea.
Cummins couldn’t last much after the tea as he departed for 33 after putting up a healthy 59-run partnership. The Australian tail couldn’t hang around for a lot after that and they were bowled out for 263. Peter Handscomb was picked in the XI on this tour only due to his past reputation of handling spin well and he didn’t disappoint as he struck his second half-century on Indian soil as he ended up with an unbeaten score of 72 runs.
A zoomed image taken from the stands as Mohammed Shami bowls to Matt Kuhnemann
The Indian opening pair was stacked against a tricky task of batting out 9 overs before the stumps which they were able to achieve whilst scoring 21 runs.
Day 2
The prospect of seeing star Indian batters like Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, etc. out in the middle on a Saturday had encouraged even more fans compared to the initial day to flock out to the stadium.
The information of Matthew Renshaw coming in as the concussion substitute for David Warner, who was hit on his head off a bouncer on the initial day, started spreading from mouth-to-mouth in the stands.
Pat Cummins must have suddenly felt like he was bowling in Sydney rather than Delhi as the stands voiced with the chants of “Cummins, Cummins”, more particularly while he was bowling against KL Rahul, as the crowd desired to watch the pair of Kohli-Rohit out in the middle and wanted Cummins to account for two quick wickets.
Nathan Lyon removed KL Rahul, Rohit Sharma, Cheteshwar Pujara, Shreyas Iyer in quick succession to reduce India from 46/0 to 66/4. Virat Kohli, who was greeted with a huge roar on his home ground while he walked out to bat, stayed put to the crease alongside Ravindra Jadeja to guide the score to 88/4 at lunch.
I went downstairs at lunch to drink water from the public water drinking facility where an Australian middle-aged lady standing next to me in the queue for the water greeted me with a statement that sounded like a bit of a nice banter. She said with a smile “Hey, did you enjoy the taste of our bowling might?”. I responded to her with a smile on my face and eyes beaming with confidence “Definitely your session but wait till you get rid of everyone in our batting lineup”.
In the second session, the Aussie spin trio of Nathan Lyon, Todd Murphy, Matt Kuhnemann grabbed a wicket apiece to reduce India to a stage where it looked like Australia would be able to grab a huge lead of roundabout 80-100 as India had been reduced to 139/7 but the pair of Axar Patel and Ravichandran Ashwin had other ideas. They showed a fusion of grit and aggression to bat India’s way out of trouble as the pair put on an extremely valuable stand of 114 runs. The crowd went crazy during every Australian appeal during which the umpire didn’t lift his finger with “DRS, DRS, DRS” chants with half the stadium even signalling review from their hands in an order to mock the Australian side who had burned all their reviews only in the 25th over of the Indian innings. The 8th wicket stand got broken only after Australia got hold of the second new ball right after the drinks break in the last session and the other two Indian wickets fell soon after. Owing to Axar’s 74 and Ashwin’s 37, India was able to post a total of 262 runs, just a run shy of Australia’s total.
A zoomed image taken from the stands as Axar Patel takes on the Aussies with the bat
Australian openers were left out with a similar task as the one India had faced on the initial day, to bat out 13 overs before the stumps. India got rid of Khawaja, the highest run-getter from the previous innings, pretty early in the innings this time around. What followed thereafter took everyone by surprise, instead of blocking their way to stumps, the pair of Head-Labuschagne took the attack to the bowlers and ended Australia’s day with a score of 61/1 after just 12 overs.
I spent the night worrying about the possibility of being unfortunate enough to witness a defeat for India in a home Test, which happens very rarely of late. For a number geek like me, it gave me comfort in remembering the uncanny similarities with the 3rd Ashes Test played in Sydney during 1883 which began exactly on 17th February where England and Australia managed to score exactly 263 and 262 respectively. The Aussies were able to bowl out the tourists for 197 in their 2nd innings and then chased it down with 4 wickets to spare. I really hoped for the remainder of the Test to have a similar plot.
Day 3
As stated in my previous blogs, Test matches are great places to interact with new people and eventually make friends. There was a guy whom we had spotted wearing the Warwickshire jersey which amused us as it was really uncommon for anyone to wear it in this part of the world. He attended the Test on all the days from the very first delivery to stumps which not many people do. This had ensured us that he was a true cricket fanatic like the two of us and hence we were somewhat eager to interact with him. The opportunity presented itself on this day and we got to know that his name was Wrik Ghosh and though he was of Indian origin, he had lived almost all his life in the United Kingdom (UK) and he just happened to be here in Delhi at the same time for a work-related assignment. He had been to numerous international cricket venues including some of the very iconic ones across various nations which instilled a feeling of awe among the two of us.
With the away side being effectively 62/1 in their second innings at stumps on day 2 would definitely provide positive vibes to the well-wishers of the touring side but no matter how slow Test cricket might get labelled by many in this fast-paced world, the scenario can still turn upside down in only a session. India was at the receiving end in the identical scenario at the Adelaide Oval in December 2020 and hardly did we know that it was Australia's turn to experience the same in Delhi in February 2023.
The first session of the third day was all about India’s domination as they completely stamped their authority over Australia in these conditions. Jadeja accounted for 7 wickets while Ashwin took the other 3 as India bundled out Australia without facing any resistance from them as the tourists could add just another 52 runs to their overnight total before getting bundled out.
India took a very aggressive approach on their way to the target of 115 due to which they lost 4 wickets, but the same approach ensured that there wasn’t going to be any surprise finish by the Aussies to the proceedings of this Test.
We witnessed the presentation where Ravindra Jadeja was awarded the Man of the Match for his 10 wickets and 26 runs in this Test. This was the shortest Test we had witnessed inside the stadium and the unanticipated early end to the Test left us with some extra time on our hands during which we felt the void of watching Test cricket from the stands. Nevertheless, an Indian win is what we came to witness and that’s exactly what we got.
Me (on the left) with my friend, Jaskirat Singh Sethi (right)
