Delhi: Australia’s quest for world domination is over after they spectacularly failed their most important spin examination to plunge to a bewildering defeat inside three days against India.
This is a shattering loss for Australia. A day which began with real hope of securing a series-levelling victory finished with their ambitions of joining the country’s golden generation wrecked and the Border-Gavaskar Trophy remaining on Indian soil.
Pat Cummins leads the team off the ground after they were defeated by India during day three of the Second Test.Credit:Getty Images
Two days of hard work in the Delhi haze went up in a puff of smoke in one disastrous hour when eight wickets fell in an array of reckless sweep shots.
In 2017 with a less experienced group, Australia’s buzz phrase was “trust your defence” but six years later their focus on brave and bold batting backfired amid a calamitous collapse.
Batting was not expected to be easy but few imagined such a capitulation after their dashing start the night before.
Facing their moment of truth on the subcontinent, Australia’s strategy of attacking spin masters Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja unravelled at an alarmingly rapid rate.
Mohammed Siraj leaps on the back of Ravindra Jadeja after he took his seventh wicket during the third day.Credit:AP
Bowling unchanged through the morning session, the spin kings claimed the nine remaining Australian wickets in just 91 minutes in a savage and match-defining momentum swing. One by one, they came, they saw, and they were conquered.
No matter how you slice and dice the numbers – they did not make for pretty reading. All out for 113 in just 31.1 overs; 9-48 in 110 balls, including a loss of 4-0 in 11 deliveries over 15 minutes.
A match which had the makings to be an all-timer, fizzled out just over 20 minutes before tea on the third day.
Australia’s surrender with the bat was up there with the horror show in Nagpur, except this time they had been ahead of the game.
Ashwin performed the grunt work at the top of the order, removing the dangerous Travis Head and Steve Smith, before Jadeja cut a swathe through the rest of the line-up. To appropriate the old ditty about Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson, if Ashwin don’t get you, Jadeja must.
Marnus Labuschagne is bowled by Ravindra Jadeja.Credit:AP
Jadeja’s career-best figures of 7-42 gave him a career-best match return of 10-110, bettering his previous mark of 10-154 in India’s innings victory over England in Chennai 2016.
The cheers that followed each red return on the DRS and the joyous chants of “India, India” after every wicket formed the soundtrack to another failure with the bat on the subcontinent.
The jubilation of the fans in blue in the 140-year-old stadium contrasted with the stunned expressions on the faces of coach Andrew McDonald and his players and support staff on the viewing balcony in Australia’s dressing room.
Their plan to be bold and proactive had been dialled up to recklessness – and it was blowing up before them. From the moment Smith was trapped in front sweeping – not his trademark shot to spin – wickets fell in irregular intervals over the next hour, as if they were following an inaccurate train timetable.
Even players the quality of Marnus Labuschagne and Smith were bamboozled, the latter playing and missing balls from Ashwin that would not turn. As Test great Matthew Hayden said on commentary, it was as if the Australians were batting with a bamboo stick.
With the exception of Travis Head and Peter Handscomb, whose outside edges were clipped by spin gems, the tourists contributed significantly to their own demises.
At the lower end of culpability was Labuschagne, who went back instead of forward and was in no position to dig out a 99 km/h dart from Jadeja.
Rohit Sharma plays a shot.Credit:Getty Images
Matthew Renshaw was picked for his experience in India, but is playing like a batter who has never seen spin. From 16 balls this series, he has been dismissed three times for four runs.
After failing to find the middle of the bat in any of the seven deliveries he faced, he was trapped dead in front sweeping to a ball that was hitting halfway up middle stump – and burning a review in the process.
The spin mastery and cacophony from a crowd baying for baggy green wickets were conditions not conducive to clear thinking. The time-outs available in the Big Bash League would have been useful.
Despite being given a drinks break to think about his opening gambit, Cummins premeditated a sweep shot to Jadeja but was nowhere near it and bowled first ball. The apparent bewildered expressions from Smith and Labuschagne in the sheds told a story.
Alex Carey, Australia’s last hope of a lower-order revival, exposed his leg stump to a poorly executed reverse sweep and duly had it uprooted by Jadeja. The shot is integral to his plan here, but he has now been dismissed three times out of four to the stroke. He is dying by the sword more than he is living.
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