Australia rediscover lost spirit and values at Indore; pull one back to go 2-1 in Border-Gavaskar series

The celebrations were colourless. Despatching Ravi Ashwin to the mid-on fence, Marnus Labuschagne sprinted a few steps down the track, held aloft both hands in victory pose and let out a feeble roar towards the dressing room. Travis Head, whose calm aggression ensured his team did not stutter after the nervous start, ambled towards Labuschagne and wrapped his arms around his shoulder. The rest of the colleagues trickled out of the verandah that hugs the boundary ropes and broke into warm embraces and hugs. There were no victory laps or mad f-pumping, despite the enormity of the nine-wicket triumph, which ascertains their spot in the World Test Championship final as well as a shot at squaring the series. There was a sense of certainty that they would not lose the Test from here.
The Indore hammering of India would remain one of their sweetest victories abroad. Wins on these hostile shores, where just two teams have claimed a Test series this century come rarely. Steve Smith would know it, in the last ten years, across three full series, they have won just two Tests, and lost eight in this span. Though possessing world-beating teams across different eras, Australia have scripted series wins just twice in 44 years. Their most recent campaign would not further embellish their hory, for India already has teared up an unassailable lead. But squaring the series would be an adequately creditable achievement against a team that has wrapped up 15 home series on the bounce, made their home a fortress that cannot be stormed, leave alone breached.

But as much as the result, it was the spirit they showed that would brighten their glow of victory. The Indore win was about rediscovering the lost spirit and values. Until this week, they were like a shipwreck sinking deep into the depth of the ocean. When the tempest blew hard, they stood frozen on the deck, waiting for the storm to pass and slipped into maddening chaos. What unnerved most in their capitulation in Nagpur and Delhi was how timidly they surrendered, without defiance or resance, seemingly without answers to the questions India posed. Uncharacteric collapses, unseemly brain-freezes, this iteration seemed a passive imitation of the past heroes. Whirling them further into a maelstrom, Pat Cummins flew back home to be beside his ailing mother.

Australia are IN!
They’ll face either India or Sri Lanka in the WTC final in early June at the Oval, London #INDvAUS pic.twitter.com/9iVmdhVWWF
— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) March 3, 2023
In one stroke of misfortune, they lost their most lethal seamer and the captain. The tour seemed to fall apart, with some critics likening the disaster to the 2012-13 disaster. Reams of print were devoted to nit-pick their flaws and fallacies, anchors and experts hounded them on prime-time telly. They were not just written off from the series, but from the minds and consciousness. It’s comparable to India’s comeback in Melbourne, after being shot out for 36 in Adelaide.
It was in this grim backdrop that Smith, the stand-in captain but novice in leading men, led his troops out. The eight-day break helped to regroup and retool, as Smith would later say. Frank chats too aided them. “The talk was about taking the ego out of the game. On these pitches, the ball would invariably beat the edge. But both the batsmen and bowlers should accept it. You might be bowling well, but you should not feel hurt if you are taken off the attack, because someone else would be bowling better, or someone else could be more effective in that particular juncture,” Smith explains.

A well-worn truism of the game worked too. Elaborates Smith: ‘The talks were like to trust your methods and forget about the results. The results would eventually come. We accepted that we played terribly in Nagpur and Delhi, where we basically screwed up our chances.”

Australia win the Third Test 9 wickets. #TeamIndia 🇮🇳 will aim to bounce back in the fourth and final #INDvAUS Test at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad 👍🏻👍🏻
Scorecard ▶️ https://t.co/t0IGbs2qyj @mastercardindia pic.twitter.com/M7acVTo7ch
— BCCI (@BCCI) March 3, 2023
But it was not breaks or chats alone that catalysed their resurgence. Perhaps, it was their battered pride and the burning ego, and from it stemmed their intensity on the field. It was a different Australia that bounded out to the Holkar Stadium on Day One—they seemed armed with more self-belief, instilled with more courage. You could decipher the change in the mood, from the riveting first over that Mitchell Starc produced, hemming and hooping the ball around, from the spunk and energy on the field, dashing, jumping and running for every run and catch.
Nothing fazed them, determined to win the game at all costs, not fearing the backlash back home but to restore their own pride and belief in their belief. They lost the toss, it did not matter. They lost six wickets for 12 runs; it barely bothered. They lost a wicket off the second ball; it did not frazzle them. Storms and tempest blew on their face, but they didn’t wither. Smith credited the win to a mindset change, and proving that the lessons they always speak of after defeat have been learned.
Meticulous implementation
But it was also about their meticulous implementation of skills. Their spinners read the pitch better, their batsmen played India’s spinners smarter, and they fielded more agilely, clinging to every half-catch they could, stopping every run they could. In the eulogies showered on Nathan Lyon and Matthew Kuhnemann, the efforts of the batsmen should not be forgotten. Most of all Usman Khawaja, whose 60 in the first innings was a picture of assuredness against a trio of multi-skilled spinners on a vicious turner. No overseas left-hander since Alastair Cook has blunted India’s spinners like Khawaja did in this Test. Cook often made it look like a battle; Khawaja made it look like a breeze.

Unforeseen, the missing pieces in the Aussie puzzle seem to have fallen in place, naturally and not with force. Head has killed doubts of his capacity to play spin, Cameron Green has brought balance; Starc is looking sharp, and all three spinners have picked at least a five-for in this series. Unanticipated, in the span of seven sessions, the hitherto one-sided series, sprung to life. Suddenly, Australia match India toe-to-toe in every facet, building up nervous excitement for the Ahmedabad Test. Indore was the kiss of life that both Australia and the series craved for. A fortnight ago, the venue was not even supposed to host a Test. But how defining a place it would be in the pages of this series.