Australia’s epochal 2004 triumph in India was as much a matter of good fortune as good planning. The efforts of Pat Cummins’ men to do likewise will take place in what may as well be another world.
Led expertly by Adam Gilchrist as Ricky Ponting nursed a fractured finger, the 2004 tourists were well seasoned and thoughtful, but they also had plenty of help from the hosts and the elements.
Jason Gillespie salutes the crowd after taking five wickets on a Nagpur pitch made to order for him in 2004.Credit:AP
For one, they had the advantage of facing an Indian team starting to fracture after their meritorious drawn Test series in Australia the preceding summer.
Sachin Tendulkar had an elbow injury and was not yet fully fit when he returned halfway through. Tellingly, too, the series was played in October and November, a more temperate time of year than February and March.
After resounding success in the first Test, Australia were staring at defeat in the second, with India chasing a smallish fourth innings target in Chennai, when the final day’s play was washed out.
The pivotal match of the series 19 years ago was played on a Nagpur pitch that, due to a dispute between the BCCI’s then president Jagmohan Dalmiya and the Vidarbha Cricket Association then led by Shashank Manohar, was decidedly Australian in nature.
Groundstaff work on the Nagpur pitch.Credit:Getty Images
It had live grass, pace, bounce and sideways movement for the fast bowlers, and Jason Gillespie, Glenn McGrath and the Australian batting line-up consequently took full advantage of the conditions, and enjoyed the unexpected gift. So helpful was the surface for Australia that it seemed to be made purposely to precipitate an Indian defeat.
Much more representative of what Australia will face this time around was the strip for the final match in Mumbai, a shifty and sharply turning surface. The game was over in little more than two days’ actual play, with 13 wickets falling in its final session.
A young Michael Clarke may have celebrated figures of 6-9, but it was the post-match verdict of Ponting that hung in the air. “This was nowhere near a Test wicket,” he fumed.
In 2023, however, it is the Mumbai experience that has much more relevance for Australia. India’s board, coaching staff and curators have become adept at working in sync to prepare the sorts of pitches that give them the best chance to win.
As a consequence, only England in 2012 have managed to defeat India on home soil since Australia in 2004. Even then, the conditions were much more equitable than Australia might expect this time.
The following year, on the same Australian tour as the “homework” scandal, an Indian selector explained: “We were worried about England’s spinners, so for those games we tried to prepare decent wickets. But we knew your inadequacies against spin, and our spin bowling was better than yours. We knew if we made sure the wickets were extreme you couldn’t beat us.”
In 2017, similar thinking led to the preparation of a Pune pitch very like the 2004 Mumbai deck. Only this time, the Australians were prepared for the ambush and after winning the toss emerged with a vast victory.
That is the one drawback of India’s strategy, once again in evidence in pitch preparation for Nagpur: a carefully doctored surface can also turn treacherous for the hosts if they are unable to elbow their way in front of the game early on. But two series defeats in 20 years can be summed up in two words: it works.
Whether it is fair or not will no doubt be debated yet again. An abiding irony of cricket history is that an ugly Australian protest over similar conditions in Karachi in 1988 led indirectly to the advent of neutral umpires in international cricket after the ACB dropped its longstanding opposition.
Whatever those arguments, Australia’s players and coaches know they must not allow their minds to be clouded by panic or negativity. One, noting the selective watering of the Nagpur pitch, spoke in admiration for its precision. “They are so good,” he said, “At preparing what they want.”
The likes of Cummins, Steve Smith and David Warner were subject to some predictable umbrage from England for daring to suggest that winning in India would be a more significant triumph than doing so in the United Kingdom. They were correct.
To win in India in 2023 would be to accomplish a much more difficult task than it was in 2004, or indeed any other era. Australia have never achieved a greater victory.
News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.
