India won the Border Gavaskar Trophy 2008 by beating Australia 2-0. In a nail biting final day of play, India managed to wrap-up the entire Australian batting line-up, winning the match by 172 runs. A target of 380+ runs in the last day in a wearing down sub-continental track will be challenging, but as long as the hard hitting Mathew Hayden was there, it was reachable. He was making sure that Australia were never down in terms of runs scored.
Australia were off track from the beginning of the series. They missed to win to first test match in Bangalore and lost their way in the remaining matches in the series.
The series was never a cake walk for the Indians, it was hard fought. Whoever said test cricket is to die or whatsoever, had to eat their words 🙂 . Australian teams and their captains have a part to play in making test cricket more interesting or watchable. They play for a win and they play for a result. I still remember those good old days of test cricket where most of the matches end in a tame draw and where a run rate of 3 was deemed ‘very aggressive’. These days, most teams comfortably score at a run rate of 3+.
Australia would have a deep look at the series’ outcome and the way they went with it. While the batting line-up is still good, the bowling seems to need some attention. Sure, the replacements for Gilly, McGrath and Warne are not there yet. Brett Lee was out of sorts, often lacking his aggression and pace. Ponting would not be spared too. His tactics behind employing the ‘part-timers’ to bowl at a point in the match where the test could be won, can be questioned. While CA have already shown interest in questioning (to have a feel of the situation 🙂 ) his tactics to know the reasons behind, some critics have already had a go at him. Like any player, a captain can also have a bad test or a bad series.
The series saw Sourav and Anil retiring from cricket, Laxman playing his 100th test match, Sachin making it to the record books for leading run scorer in test cricket and Harbhajan getting 300 wickets in test cricket.
M.Vijay, Amit Mishra, Jason Krejza and Cameron White made their first appearance representing their national teams. The first three have made use of the opportunity well and will look forward for the next call-up to represent their national teams. Good luck to them!
Test cricket is still interesting, at least for those who know the game.
On a side note, this reminds me of a chat with my Cypriot friend, with whom i was talking about this series. Obviously, i was a bit enthusiastic about India beating Australians at Mohali. He said, “Cricket is not interesting… one team bats and then the other team bats and there is no competition between the two teams!”. He was looking for something like football, where both the teams have a go(!) at the ball at a time! I did not want to waste my time in trying to convince him!
phew! quite a lengthy post!
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