Australia lost; Australia regained

Raju Bharatan

If Wasim Akram had been dismissive in a strain of "India now have only one match-winner in Sachin Tendulkar", Geoff Boycott (in his ICC Knockout preview comments) had pinpointed how little Sourav Ganguly and his team could hope to achieve in such an all-nations "international tournament" as the Mini World Cup with "just four world-class players".

Yet, the Saturday (of 7 October 2000) saw the Jonahs and the Jeremiahs proved wrong -- and how!

Steve Waugh's Australia had come into the Nairobi ICC Knockout fray as World champions. But, for once, it was Sourav’s India that performed like champions to avenge The Oval (Tuesday 4 June 1999) 'on-the-wrong-foot' start to the crucial Super Six segment of the World Cup -- a time when Steve Waugh's Australia, after being obligingly asked to bat first by Mohammad Azharuddin, ran up a total of 282 that put us on the back-foot (against Glenn McGrath) from the word go.

Now the same McGrath came at us (as Steve Waugh sent us in) in a clear aim to strike similar pyschological blows to our ego -- and settle our Mini World Cup pretensions. But Sachin Tendulkar took the cantankerous Kangaroo by the nape of the neck this time out.

The first punches in India's hitback had been delivered. What happened after that is now visual history.

The cricket adrenalin is flowing in India again. Why, with that victory over puny Kenya itself, we had felt we were on the way again! It is a momentary high, no doubt. But let us savour 'the flavour of the moment' -- for now!

For what Sourav's India has incredibly accomplished is to revive the totally shattered faith, in cricket, in the country. To this extent, where Sourav's India now finally finish, in the ICC Knockout, is going to be significant, of course.

Yet a 'knockout', coming after the traumatic win over Australia, cannot totally erase the misty memory of that Saturday 7 October 2000 victory, accomplished by all-round excellence -- Yuvraj Singh, at 18, batting with a mature head on young shoulders; and then putting the stamp, on his exciting new persona, as a world-class field.

It was, in a long time, the most satisfying win by India over Australia on foreign soil -- even allowing for the fact that it was but a one-day contest.

Still a one-day contest against the World champs!

In the 53-year history of cricket confrontation between these two nations -- while playing abroad -- had India, even once, looked like overwhelming Australia?

We had, as the five-match 1977-78 series got going. It was an hour in which they almost begged India to tour, Kerry Packer having eaten into the vitals of Australian cricket by spiriting away (for his rebel 'Supertests') Ian Chappell, Dennis Lillee, Greg Chappell, Doug Walters, Rodney Marsh, Len Pascoe, Max Walker, Gary Gilmour and who not?

So desperate was Australia's situation, in 1977-78, that they had, compulsively, to ask Bobby Simpson to emerge out of retirement so as to captain their team -- reduced to 'flotsam and jetsam'.

That was the phase in Indian cricket when our spin quartet was at its zenith, so that, in Australia, Bishan Singh Bedi's India should have won hands down.

Bedi hadn't a leg to stand on, therefore, when India lost that series (2-3) -- albeit in a thriller all the way.

As I took Bedi (India's established captain by then) ruthlessly to task, in print, for such a 2-3 outcome -- where it should have been 3-0 in our favour, at the very least -- Bishan, during a cricket board function (in a public speech on the team's return to India), made a pointed reference to me, averring: "The trouble in our country is that there are some critics you never can please!"

The 'Bulleshah' burden of Bedi's 'Weh main naheen bolanna' Narindar Chanchal song was that it had been a most exciting rubber which had produced jolly good cricket; that the series had been a great advertisement for the traditional form of the game at a time "when cricket itself had to be saved" from Kerry Packer.

His India, argued Bishan, had notably contributed, in this noble direction, by creating the opening for a heart-stopping interface in Australia -- no matter if India had lost.

Set that against the fact that we had won all our eight matches (on that 1977-78 tour of Australia), before we came to the December 1977 first Test at Brisbane.

"You do not win eight matches unless you are a good team," Bobby Simpson had remarked at the time. By which Simpson, obviously, had implied that India -- still at full strength with no defections to Packer -- were a task force to reckon with at that turning-point in the game.

Bedi’s India should logically, therefore, have followed up those eight tour wins by wrapping up the Test series too. But, with the best spin attack in the world, Bishan and his men managed to lose the first two Tests against Australia's weakest team ever!

Maybe, the first Test at Brisbane was lost by but 16 runs, the second Test at Perth by just 2 wickets. But those matches conceded -- at that starting point itself -- meant that Bobby Simpson & Co overcame their terrific inferiority complex against India’s super spin trio. So that, even after our spin went on, conclusively, to win the next two matches in the series (by 222 runs at Melbourne; by an innings and 2 runs at Sydney; to level things 2-2), the initiative was not wholly with Bedi's India in the decider at Adelaide.

There Australia, batting first, unexpectedly ran up a total of 505 -- at a time when the spin threesome of Bedi, Prasanna and Chandra was expected to run through the demoralised opposition, after those decisive Test wins at Melbourne and Sydney.

No doubt this final Test at Adelaide was to prove a humdinger, as India spiritedly chased (on the extra sixth day then permitted to determine the outcome of a series) a daunting target of 493 to win.

And India very nearly made it, as the cultured strokeplay of the blossoming Dilip Vengsarkar (78) and the never-say-die support of Syed Kirmani (51) saw the tourists, in a seesaw, needing 145 runs for a win at 348 for 6; and just 78 more at 415 for 7, 'utility man' Karsan Ghavri having chipped in with 23.

But the tempo could not be sustained, as India wanted a further 55 runs, when the world's worst batsman, B S Chandrasekhar, came in at 442 for 9. As we were all out for 445, skipper Bedi zeroed in, on this nail-biting finish, as the ideal finale to the series.

But, at the end of the day, Simpson’s Australia had won 3-2, a rubber that Bedi's India, logically, should have clinched 4-0, if not 5-0. Bedi's India should have outplayed Australia all the way then.

Just as Sourav’s India outplayed Steve Waugh's Australia almost all the way now. Then Bobby Simpson, as captain, himself played a stellar role in showing his 'team of triers' how to come to grips with India's world-quality spin.

Bobby Simpson, then, never batted above No 5 -- in an attempt to bolster Australia's torso. Simpson (nearing 42 years of age as the first Test at Brisbane began) had, in the series, scores of 7 & 89; 176 & 39 (run out); 2 & 4 (dismissed by Chandra both times); 38 & 33; 100 & 51.

Peter Toohey (82 & 57; 0 & 83; 14 & 14; 4 (run out) & 85; 60 & 10) was the only other true-class act that Australia had to offer against our highly penetrative spin.

Graham Yallop came in only for the final Test, at Adelaide, where he impressed with 121 & 24; but Kim Hughes (of whom much was expected as the most promising young batsman then in Australia) disappointed in the two Tests in which he played -- 28 & 0 at Perth; 17 & 19 at Sydney.

Among the bowlers, Australia had but Jeff Thomson -- as the sole whirlwind survivor from Packer’s demoralising raid on Australia’s cricket larder.

But, all by himself, that tearaway terror could bay for Indian blood so much and no more. Though Thommo did put the wind up both Brijesh Patel and Ashok Mankad!

Australia's bowling was thus little better than their batting in that 1977-78 series. Yet so overwhelmed were the most hard-boiled of Australian critics by the spectacle of Indian spin calling the shots (against pusillanimously ill-equipped Kangaroo batting) that they lost all sense of perspective in showering praise on Bedi, Chandra and Prasanna.

It was this style and scale of praise (coming from the critical cognoscenti in Australia) that, I believe, went to our spinners' heads. It was their smugly secure mindset that culminated in our spin trio being, later, destroyed during the late-1978 three-Test series in Pakistan.

A series traumatically surrendered, 0-2, by Bedi's India.

As the Packer players were released by Our Man Kerry for this grudge series in Pakistan, the willows of Zaheer Abbas (176 & 96; 235 & 34 not out; 42) and Javed Miandad (154 & 6 not out); 35; 100 & 62 not out) just knocked our world-class spin off its stride.

"All three of us spinners bowled very badly, in Pakistan, after that (1977-78) tour of Australia," Prasanna admitted to me later.

Did that happen because the seasoned Aussie writers gave our spin (against batting that was well below Test class) a totally erroneous estimate of its abiding skills?

It is in this amber light that I turn the focus on some of the comments, on our spin, that we had, in Australia, during that 1977-78 ‘non-Packer’ season.

Comments that should come as an eye-opener to cricket writers the world over about how, under the illusion of being on a 'rescue mission' (in this case, saving Conservative Cricket), seasoned critics should not lose their sense of balance -- should not forget the calibre of batting in assessing the fibre of spin.

Wrote Jack Fingleton at the end of the fourth Test, as the series stood poised at 2-2: "The Indians enjoyed a clear-cut superiority, in spirit and technique, than the Australians: they had the better batsmen, with Gavaskar a bonny Test opener, Vishwanath a superb stroke-maker, (Mohinder) Amarnath a splendid Test all-rounder, Kirmani, Vengsarkar and Ghavri all showing us batting of the highest order and never flinching from Thomson.

"Bedi, Chandra and Prasanna took our minds back to Australia’s best spinning days of Mailey, Grimmett, O’Reilly and Fleetwood-Smith."

If that sounds a Jack Fingleton overestimate (in the context of the downgraded dimension of batting opposition that Indian spin then encountered in Australia), what Bill O'Reilly had to say of Bedi is most interesting.

Noted O'Reilly: "Bishan gets the ball to bite and he manages that subtle amount of outswing float to mesmerise the batsmen."

Impressive as Bedi might have been, you felt that Bill O'Reilly (for all his known anti-Australia stance) should have made some allowance for the fact that the Kangaroos' 'second string' it was that was so suddenly pitted against our master spin trio.

But O'Reilly was typically unrelenting in his value judgment, as he observed about Bedi: "Bishan bowled with incredible control over direction and length and got sufficient turn to insist upon precisely correct footwork to ensure batting survival -- just the thing in which most of the Australians, today, are found wanting!

"Last season (1976-77)," added O’Reilly, "I had the temerity to write that Grimmett and I would have crashed through the then Australian team for 100 runs.

"Bradman said he thought I was being a little optimistic in writing what I did, because no Australian spinner ever gets the ball, nowadays, until the score has passed 100!"

When that was the ground position, as underscored by Bill O'Reilly himself, how possibly could a bowler-writer, of his penetration and perception, expect Australia's 'leftover' batting side (made up from the likes of Cosier, Dyson, Ogilvie, Serjeant and Rixon) to have coped with India’s world-famous spin trio?

Typically, O'Reilly added the tart footnote: "No wonder the Australians cannot play spin -- the Australian selectors have forgotten what the term means!"

Jack Fingleton rubbed salt into the spin wounds of the bemused new crop of Aussie batsmen by reminding them of what The Don would have done to Bedi!

"Bradman would have slaughtered this genial Indian," noted Fingleton.

"The Don had feet of quicksilver and they would have taken him yards down the pitch to get to Bedi on the full."

Bill O'Reilly, for his part, was simply fascinated by Chandra’s sleight-of-hand.

As that 'India Rubber Spinner' turned up trumps, in the third Test at Melbourne (with match figures of 12 for 104), Bill O'Reilly (rated by Bradman as Australia's best wrist spinner, indeed as the best bowler The Don himself ever played against), said he felt "astonished to learn that Chandra did not make up his mind about the type of ball he would send down until his right arm was in its final twirl".

"I told Chandra that is too late," observed O’Reilly. "I told him that he should think of it as he began his run-up!"

Chandra did -- and, against 12 for 104 in that Melbourne Test, had match figures of 6 for 115 in the fourth Test, at Sydney, that followed!

But, then, Australian critics were not alone in getting so carried away by Indian spin.

British writers had been no less spellbound by Bedi, Chandra and Venkat during our historic 1-0 win, in the three-match series in England, during the summer of 1971.

At least, that time, our spinners won through when pitted against England’s best batsmen.

While now, in 1977-78 (a stage by which Prasanna had snatched back the off-spinning crown from Venkat), the Aussie batting our spinners destroyed was ‘economy class’ at best.

About the watershed 1971 tour of England, Prasanna had contended, before me, that ‘the team management’ had planned to keep him out of the three-Test series, in England, from the word go, seeing how he was studiedly stood down, in favour of Venkat, from the very first match of that tour vs Middlesex.

"It was a plot!" Prasanna had said on his ultra-angry return to India, obviously referring to the Adhikari-Wadekar manager-skipper axis.

"From the very first game of the tour, they had decided to shunt me out --otherwise how could I, as India’s number-one off-spinner at the time, have been kept out of the opening match of the tour?

"After that," continued Pras, "what baffled me, no end, was this talk of: ‘There is no room, in the Indian team, for a fourth spinner’!

"Where was there ever any question of my being the fourth spinner?

"Wasn’t I India’s number-one spinner then -- with those 124 Test wickets (at 27.94 each from just 25 Tests)?"

Pras's pungent point was that he was only ‘selectively’ played, in the Indian eleven, after that Middlesex tour-opener -- in an effort to fortify Venkat’s claim, for the third spinner’s slot (alongside Bedi and Chandra), for the first Test at Lord’s, starting Thursday 22 July 1971.

Maybe Pras had a point there; maybe he didn’t.

But the gut point is that Venkat consistently delivered, as a county wicket-taking off-spinner, from the outset, so that he ultimately came to 'earn' his series promotion over Prasanna -- even in a setting suggesting: "Nothing succeeds like Wadekar success!"

That was in 1971.

In 1977-78, even as Erapalli Prasanna elicited high praise from Aussie critics as India’s number-one off-spinner again (Ian Chappell had, a full 10 years earlier, ranked Pras as the best of his type he had ever encountered), I wonder whether this Karnataka ace -- now succeeding against some very ordinary Kangaroo batting -- had a premonition of what lay in store for him (and our other two topnotch spinners) in Pakistan at the hands of Zaheer Abbas and Javed Miandad.

I do not think Prasanna had any such inkling -- that is why he candidly confessed: "All of us spinners bowled very badly, in Pakistan, after that tour of Australia."

So to the position vis-a-vis Australia then and now.

With the most feared spin trio in the world, Bedi's India could not beat Simpson’s Australia in five-day cricket then.

Now, in one-day cricket, with a purely experimental side, we overcame Steve Waugh’s Australia when the Kangaroos should have been seen just 'pouching' Sourav and his boys.

Overwhelming us the very way the Kangaroos had 'pouched' Azhar and his men in that 4 June 1999 Super Six set-to at The Oval.

It was nothing short of a miracle for Simpson’s Australia to have won that Test series, 3-2, from Bedi’s India in 1977-78.

Likewise, it was nothing short of a miracle for Sourav’s India to have had the measure of World Champs Australia in 2000 AD, even given the vagaries of one-day cricket.

Indian cricket is back centrestage.

And that is what matters -- here and now!

Mail Raju Bharatan