As they tackle what Steve Waugh referred to as cricket’s final frontier, captain Pat Cummins and coach Andrew McDonald should pick the brains of Adam Gilchrist, the last Australian captain to win a Test series in India.
A tour of India is not only the toughest for an international cricket team for myriad reasons, but also an incessant test of patience, discipline and skill for the players, both on and off the field. Most know about the disorientating cacophony, the colours, the cuisine and the passion of fans. What is perhaps under-appreciated is the desperation of the Indian team to win – and win big – at home. They are ruthless.
Ricky Ponting and Adam Gilchrist celebrate victory over India in 2004.Credit:AP
Nobody thinks twice about preparing turning tracks. These are not wickets that turn on day three – they turn from over three. Can anyone forget when Michael Clarke turned into Jim Laker with 6-9 on day two of the 2004 Mumbai Test.
Nobody disputes India’s right to prepare rank turners (known, in the colloquial, as “Akhadas” or rural mud-wrestling pits) or whatever wickets suit them, as long as they are acceptable quality Test wickets where cricket remains a test of skill, not chance.
Having spent 20 years playing club cricket in India and then 20 here, the differences are quite stark and still evolving. Unlike Australia, India never used to be a talkative team, though they never minded an appeal or nine. Now, you need industrial-quality ear muffs for the non-stop chatter. They have learnt this from Australia.
Coincidentally, Australia don’t do this much, anymore.
And while the food and the hotels will be incredible, don’t expect the Indian cricket board to be hospitable when it comes to good net bowlers. I spent three tours of India with the Australian team (1998, 2001 and 2004) and we usually got mediocre bowlers, an inadequate number of them and the often-patchy net wickets bore no resemblance whatsoever to the square 60 metres away.
In 1998, after Sachin Tendulkar had welcomed and demolished us with a double hundred in the opening tour game at my home ground – The Cricket Club of India’s Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai – Stuart MacGill asked if he could have a bowl on the centre wicket, having sat out that game behind Shane Warne. No problem.
I asked the groundsman to set up a centre-wicket net. Soon after, one of the BCCI’s heaviest hitters came up to me and asked what was I doing? I told him MacGill wanted a net. He replied: “Don’t you dare. We are not here to help them. We have to beat them.” He promptly told the groundsman to immediately water the wicket, denying MacGill his net.
Here was an administrator of international standing and he wanted India to win whatever it took, even by denying a measly centre-wicket net to our reserve spinner?
Pat Cummins celebrates a wicket on the 2017 India tour.Credit:AP
So how did Gilchrist manage to win the series win in India, something that eluded two of his great predecessors, Waugh and Mark Taylor, both of whom had equally strong teams?
He had been scarred on the losing tour of 2001 and was determined to take an “un-Australian” approach in 2004, to do things differently. Before the series, Gilchrist asked to meet one of India’s greatest tactical and strategic cricket brains – the late, wily Vasoo Paranjape.
Justin Langer, Gilchrist and me met him over dinner in Mumbai’s Taj Mahal Hotel. Like sponges, Gilly and JL picked his brains, absorbing the wit and wisdom as Vasoo expounded theories the two Australians had not considered. It was clear from the first Test that Gilly had listened well.
No more four slips and a gully without a third man. If Virender Sehwag and his cohorts wanted to score runs, they would have to hit them and run them. No more easy boundaries on those lightning quick outfields.
Australia pose with the Border-Gavaskar trophy after winning the Test series against India in 2004.Credit:AP
Vasoo did not necessarily see having a third man for Sehwag from the first ball as a defensive ploy. He also suggested nuances for bottling India’s brilliant, free-flowing middle-order stroke players – Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman – rather than attacking them at all times, as was the Australian way.
It worked a treat. Gilchrist would often ask me at breakfast what “the great man” thought of the previous day’s play – and once or twice might even have tweaked his tactics, accordingly.
And, the advice was all free. Vasoo had no qualms about sharing his wisdom and thoughts with everyone in cricket.
Incidentally, Vasoo, in real time, went berserk when I told him about the enforcement of the follow- on in the famous Kolkata Test of 2001. He berated me, told me what a massive mistake it would turn out to be. Prophetic.
I am not qualified to advise the Australian cricket team on strategy. All I can suggest is they do as Gilly did – be humble, have an open mind, seek advise from cluey locals, be different and re-engineer our Australian methods to derail and defang the opposition’s home-ground advantage. I know both Cummins and McDonald are unassuming, but determined, blokes. And I think, if they channel Gilly, they can surprise India in their own backyard.
Darshak Mehta is Chairman of The Chappell Foundation. He informally assisted the Australian cricket team to India on the 1998, 2001 and 2004 tours.
