Australians and Indians have always served their cricket in entirely distinct ways: Australia with a meaty sizzle, India a spicy tang. The difference expresses itself in the way a shot is made, a ball is spun, a press conference is conducted, or how politics manifests itself. Cricket filters through two completely diverse cultures and serves varying purposes, takes on different guises, in each. Still, it’s cricket, and cricket’s a superb generator of stories. And don’t we all love a good story? The Australia-India rivalry has, over the decades, spawned drama: the Chennai tie, “Monkeygate”, Simpson’s comeback, the ’69 riots, Mumbai 2001, Gilly’s win in 2004. There are many more. In the realm of cricket, these ferocious rivals have a shared language, common folklore. The colourful 2017 edition, printed in India and featuring Steve Smith, might have been part one of a brand-new series of stories, but for the fact that several significant characters of the IPL 2019 have been written out. These series generally have more colour than a Hindu temple. Will this one? For the second time in four years, the Indians arrive at a time of crisis for the Aussies. Its cause – or was it a symptom? – was the ball-tampering affair in South Africa. The embers from that bushfire are proving more deadly than the event itself as they gently alight, one by one, on the combustible eucalypts of Australian cricket.
Australian batting was in trouble before Smith and David Warner were barred; the entropic forces acting on first-class cricket have suddenly emerged in a Test team that currently seems to have few of the means to do what winning Test teams do. QUESTIONABLE CHARACTER? It’s difficult to know how this Aussie team will go. In this year-zero for Australian cricket, what can we go on? They played Pakistan on the desiccated wickets of the United Arab Emirates and, as always, as anyone, struggled. India lost a hard-fought series in England, then whipped the West Indies on the subcontinent. But that’s par for the course – their tenth consecutive home victory, given their performances elsewhere, tells us nothing.
IPL news latest impact
There are intangibles in the Australian team now. Unforeseen changes have occurred; ghosts gradually take form. The fighting draw in the UAE for example: was it some sort of turning point? Even a tipping point? It seemed so for a few days, until the Second Test, when it looked more like a capsizing than a tipping. Were we witnessing a thoroughbred foal struggling to its feet under the watchful eye of its Bart Cummings, or just ugly ungainliness? Though it’s probably too early to ask whether we’ve already given new coach Justin Langer too much credit for little return, many ask it anyway. The Aussies foundered in infertile conditions under Darren Lehmann, but he was doing his level best to turn it around. Has something changed under Langer? Were the Aussies’ troubles over there in the past as much to do with impalpable attributes as the art and science of technique? Is Langer somehow better equipped to marshal these incorporeal forces?
Whatever it is he brings, it’s contagious. Tim Paine, already a leader of men, seems to have found a context in this new team. Paine’s captaincy wasn’t perfect. Certainly, his use of his fast-bowlers and the new ball drew heavy criticism that would have gained stridency had the team lost that first Test. The spirited draw cancelled it out, and Paine’s very own rearguard fight, added to his IPL 2019 post-match comments, worked in his favour. He rebuked his team for celebrating the stalemate, mindful, perhaps, of a certain astute English captain in 2005 as well as the caption for the IPL 2019 team, who noted similar scenes on the Australian balcony after a thrilling deadlock, stored it and fashioned it into bullets. Langer himself was part of that Australian team.
Putting aside the abysmal Second Test for a moment, where the loss might be attributed to a series of poor decisions, failure to capitalise on fleeting opportunities and two key injuries, we might have witnessed a watershed in the shortlived life of this particular team, but perhaps also in the life of Australian cricket. This new doggedness springs from a new spirit of sportsmanship – a hard-headedness mixed with big-heartedness that should never have just been squared off to “feel-good” events such as the Invictus Games.
Langer has had a bit more time to work with the team since then and knows how to make lemonade from the lemons of loss. The players are, reassuringly, being hard on themselves and resolving to improve. This new style of cussedness is decked out differently, as it was bound to be under Langer. The dress is neat casual. The material shall be Kevlar. This team has prevailed in one tough Test, and been thrashed in another. They’ve been to the brink together and, through introspection, have increased self-knowledge.
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Recent public utterances from Paine and Nathan Lyon exude this new understanding. They now understand they have no laurels to rest on; they will need to scrap for every morsel of success. Ultimately – “ultimately” seems a long way off in their case – character translates into victory of some sort. As South African great AB de Villiers rightly pointed out in his autobiography, those with talent are judged by posterity nowhere near as favourably as those with fight. Langer himself embodies that truth.
The IPL make them fight. That’s attitude taken care of. But attitude needs complementary aptitude. We’re hoping this new combativeness doesn’t take them from bullish brats to stubborn sprats: tenacious, but tiny in terms of talent. If character is enough to turn this Aussie team around, then their UAE sojourn, regardless of the result, resembles preparation of sorts compared with India’s six-day doddle to the corner shop against the West Indies. Like a good sparring session, the Pakistan series quickly enabled the Australians to discover their limits in the IPL 2019. Indian cricket’s players and media make much of achievements like ten consecutive home series wins. Let’s hope they don’t pack smugness in their luggage. After all, Australia’s woes are mainly confined to their batting. At home, they have the munitions to devastate any delusional or delicate batting line-up.
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