FORGET FOUR days and 70 overs of seat-edge and occasionally brilliant test cricket. Let’s start with the finish. Two overs to go for India to draw this match at Sydney and move on to the next two with a real chance of wresting the Border-Gavaskar trophy from the Australians. India still had three wickets in hand and their supporters were wearing tired but proud smiles, and could even be forgiven for thinking that it was all over as far as the Australian push for victory in this match.

Golden Touch

Michael Clarke, the golden haired boy and apparently the man with the golden arm too, tweaked his deceptively cunning deliveries in his hands as he waited to get his field correct. Ponting, the Punter, had taken his last punt for the match. And it was not without reason as far as gambles go. Clarke had once made India dance to his tunes with six wickets --even though it was in India! Rather than take the sheen away, it actually enhances credit that the six-wicket haul came against the best players of spin on a track not exactly bad for batting.

So, with a field waiting to gobble up chances and quite capable of creating chances from nothing, Clarke sidled in to bowl at Harbhajan. The wily left-hander, very intelligently, drew Harbhajan to a ball that was outside the off stump and spinning further away. The trick was also to keep the ball full so that it interested Harbhajan in driving -- not that the turbaned off-spinner did not have any other weighty matters in his mind. Harbhajan was not able to deny himself on that instance. His half check of the originally intended shot came far too late to undo the damage. The ball had kissed its woody paramour and gone to nestle lovingly in the new slip fielder, Hussey’s hands. And once more, the ball had cheated the bat, leaving the bat and its wielder bemused and not a little frothing at the mouth. Amidst whoops and wails, Harbhajan walked away -- not knowing that there was a possibility that he may not get another chance to step onto the greens again in this series.

 

Watching all this, Kumble remained calm and unperturbed at the other end. And why should he not be? Rudra Pratap Singh and Ishant Sharma had denied the Australians for a sizeable time in the first innings with Tendulkar for company. It was a measure of the confidence he had in Singh that Kumble did not walk over for the perfunctory pat on the shoulder and encouraging nothing to ensure that the incoming batsman did not do anything stupid. Clarke wheeled in for his next ball -- this time giving it more pace and making it go on to the stumps in an attempt to get the batsman to play at it. But well, Singh had plunked his foot right into the line of the ball giving no chance for the willow to get in front of canvas and meet the ball. Benson immediately acceded to a roar of a shout. It was not a bad shout though! Even though Singh had stretched forward significantly, the ball did seem to be going on straight and on the way to disturbing timber. Kumble did not twitch. He is a brave man, the Indian captain. The gangling beanpole, Sharma came in. He was not shivering in his boots -- seemingly. This time though, Kumble did have a word with Sharma. Maybe he begged him to keep out three deliveries so that the Indian captain could get a shot at negotiating the last over of the day. Sharma nodded sagely and went back to his crease. The first member of the BuckSonGate combination -- Steve Bucknor had denied him what would have been a very good wicket of Symonds early on in the first innings.

 

Sharma managed to keep out two good balls from Clarke while virtually the entire Australian team seemed to crowd around the 22 yards of brown amidst all the green. The third one though, Clarke decided to try the Harbhajan tactic. He threw it wide and full. The secret was to keep it full. Sharma drove at the ball -- once more for the cherry to kiss its willowy paramour good-bye and nestle in the waiting hands of the new but rejoicing-at-the--opportunity Hussey. The Australians let out a whoop as one and proceeded to hug and smother each other in an attempt to savour the moment of victory.

 

Clarke had done the star turn for them. Today was his turn. Habits are hard to get rid of, and of course winning was one habit they never wanted to be rid of. Punter’s gamble had paid off and the horse that he had bet on turned out to be a golden thoroughbred. Clarke did not do much with the bat in this match -- managing a solitary run in two outings with the bat. His dismissal in the second innings also highlighted how Australians thought that there was a chance that BuckSon might miss even a full blooded edge to slip being caught at hip height and rule in the batsman’s favour. Kumble and Dravid were about to burst a blood vessel or two when Steve Bucknor deemed it right to raise his finger heavenward -- still retaining his poker face. Clarke trooped off, probably amazed that he had been given out. From that position onwards, Clarke got his next chance to embrace the star turn only in one of the final overs of the day. And he did that in style.

 

When we talk about the spin attack from the Australians on the fifth day at Sydney, not mentioning Symonds’ effort would be remiss. He tormented the Indian batsman with his round armed off-spinners on which he got drift and bite and bounce and spin. He had many a top order batsman in trouble and it is no coincidence that he took three of the wickets to fall. And Clarke again demonstrated the virtues of bowling spin with a slightly round and low arm action so that drift accompanies spin and gives the ball a realistic chance to defeat the batsman in flight as well as with turn. The Indians, on the other hand, had a different spin attack. Harbhajan, the only halfway traditional spinner we have, only bowled two overs -- which happened to be the first two overs of the day -- as he should have. With drift and spin on each delivery. But once they were negotiated by the less-than-confident Symonds (he might have forgotten to drink his quadruple strength luck potion looking at his fidgety behaviour), Harbhajan reverted to his high-armed firing into the middle and off stump theory. Kumble, captain, doughty batsman and trier incomparably jumped, skidded and wheeled away at his trade over after over. But there was not much that he could coax from that wicket. Also, Hussey managed to face Kumble for most of the time and made things easy for Symonds and the other batsmen at the other end later on.

Celebration

 

So, there we have it -- 2nd Test victory for Australia in this Border-Gavaskar series, giving them an unassailable lead and 16th consecutive victory for Australia in test matches equaling the Steve Waugh led team’s record. A proud moment that for the Australians and it is no wonder that they forgot to shake hands with Kumble who remained undefeated at 45 and also had the good sense to comfort Sharma with an arm around the budding bowler’s shoulder. The Aussies had other things to do -- celebrate, jump up and down and hug each other, and of course, plan on who among the Indians would be their cat and what would be their bell. It turned out later on that Harbhajan was the one who would be jingling -- of course, the Indian off-spinner does not like the jingle -- especially when he was told that the bell could only be taken off once the test series was over, but that is something he should have thought about before having the nerve to talk to Symonds.

 

 

Also see: Sydney Test: The BuckSonGate episode -- II