In Michael Mann’s film Ali, the boxer known as “the Greatest” is depicted with his inner circle discussing how to get a rematch with Joe Frazier, the world champion.
Amid their negotiations, the television captures Frazier being knocked out by a usurper called George Foreman, leading Muhammad Ali’s photographer and friend Howard Bingham to quip: “Easy to get a Frazier fight now. He ain’t the champ of anything … except getting knocked down.”
England’s Ben Stokes and teammates after England’s loss. Credit: AP
As Australia’s men’s Test cricket team gears up for visits by India and England over the next two summers, footage of those two heavyweights getting knocked over by New Zealand and Pakistan raised a similar sense of shifting sands. Test cricket, and the world championship still in its early days, are much the better for it.
These were both, in their way, seismic events that will change the balance of power in Test cricket on the field. New Zealand had never won a series in India, and was just beaten in Sri Lanka. India had not lost such an encounter on home soil in 12 years and 18 series.
Pakistan, meanwhile, had just lost at home to Bangladesh, and were on the other side of a pummelling from England, in the honeymoon phase of Bazball in 2022. Under the guidance of new head coach Jason Gillespie, the Pakistanis were in a state of disarray after being well beaten in the first Test, but regathered with a pivot in tactics that left Ben Stokes and company floundering.
For Australia, the sight of India being not just defeated but thrashed by a New Zealand side missing Kane Williamson will be the source of some wonderment but also promise. It means the new regime of coach Gautam Gambhir will be under pressure on arriving here, added to fitness concerns that led to the omission of blue chip seamer Mohammad Shami.
Longer term, it is also a pointer to the fact that, if they wish to beat India in India, Cricket Australia’s planners might want to reconsider the schedule.
September and October, at the outset of the Indian season, has proven much the better time to try to win as an overseas team, partly because there is always a chance of a pitch that will assist seamers: New Zealand got that in Bengaluru, just as Australia did in Nagpur 20 years ago.
Before New Zealand’s triumph, England won there in 2012, and Australia in 2004 – all in a similar time window. Last time India lost in February/March, when Australia now customarily visits, was in 2000 to South Africa. Before that, you have to go back to 1987 and Pakistan’s 1-0 win over five Tests for another such outcome.
That earlier timeslot, by the way, was also when Australia’s previous series win in India, way back in 1969, took place. So, too, the unforgettable Tied Test in Chennai in 1986, where Dean Jones and Greg Matthews wrote their names into folklore. Australia’s 2027 tour is to take place largely in February.
New Zealand celebrate their first ever series win in India.Credit: AP
Also of interest was that the Sri Lanka games, while ending in defeat, helped the Black Caps to acclimatise to weather and pitch conditions. It is harder for Australia to make a similar play because India series now span all of five Tests, but still worthy of consideration.
In Rawalpindi, meanwhile, the undulating rhetorical journey of England took another twist. Stokes, having had no personal impact on the series after coming back from a hamstring tear, spoke of how his team needed to “fight” for longer periods to succeed in the spinning conditions Pakistan flipped to after losing the first Test.
Stokes’ words were, in fact, much more classical in tone for a defeated Test captain. His predecessor Joe Root had often said similar things. England are, then, coming to terms with how their “revolutionary” approach only goes so far. Five days of Test cricket require steel as well as style, function as well as flair.
Pleasingly, though, there was no hypocritical anger about the conditions. Instead, Brendon McCullum admitted surprise at Pakistan not leading with a strength like spin more readily in the past.
“When teams come to England, ideally we play on the surfaces that we’re more accustomed to, which allow our strengths to really flourish and maybe paper over some of the weaknesses as well, which every team naturally has,” McCullum said.
“I’m a little bit surprised it’s taken Pakistan as long as it has. Because when you go to Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, the ball is always going to turn. It’ll be interesting to see over the next couple of years whether they persist with these types of services, but certainly there are no excuses from our point of view. We had our chances, and we ran second.”
Pakistan and New Zealand both relied in large part, too, on a skill set that Australia must do more to foster.
Mitchell Santner’s left-arm spin was good for 13 wickets in Pune. While Matt Kuhnemann is the best such spinner available in Australia and did creditably in India in 2023, he needs more competition in red ball ranks.
Muhammad Ali, of course, went on to win a pair of epic encounters against both Foreman and Frazier in the following years, brutal bouts that secured his legacy. But there was richness in how the journey was unpredictable, much as Test cricket is better off for New Zealand and Pakistan striking blows for teams outside the financial muscle of the “Big Three”.
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