The flavour of success

Truman Capote once wrote, "Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor," and when Australia's cricketers savour a series victory in the land of spices, as appears inevitable now, many minds will hark back to the misadventures of 2001 that ultimately paved the way for this emphatic performance.

Three of the four front-line bowlers are now well into their thirties, with the odd man out - Jason Gillespie - not far behind. But while the physical attributes may be fading, compensation has come in the shape of greater maturity and enhanced awareness of their strengths and weaknesses. Australia faltered last time because there was no Plan B, because they had been seduced by the all-out onslaughts that had powered them to 16 successive Test wins.

Since then, there has been a realisation that a step back isn't necessarily a sign of cowardice, or indicative of a lack of resolution. In Sri Lanka a few months ago, they took several backward steps, regrouping each time and ultimately crushing their hosts 3-0. And this afternoon, with Zaheer Khan and Ajit Agarkar bowling magnificent spells with the new ball, they soaked up the punishment for half an hour after lunch, with not a run scored for seven overs.

The hubris which was their Achilles heel in 2001 wasn't checked in with the baggage this time, and Simon Katich - soft-spoken, sensitive and thoughtful - was the perfect messenger to spread the new word. Aleem Dar turned down a vociferous shout for leg-before early in his innings, and there were several nervy wafts against Zaheer and Agarkar, but once he found his feet, he batted with the poise and elegance that so impressed at Sydney last December.

Katich's star may be in the ascendant, but India's batting galaxy has vanished into a black hole. Their performances in Australia last year - granted, Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne were absent then - were so resplendent that seasoned cricket-watchers compared them to the greatest batting sides ever to tour the land of the kangaroo. In six completed innings, the top five wickets added 273, 388, 221 (in a victorious last-day chase), 350, 253 and 570. There were six centuries, with the imperious VVS Laxman accounting for two of them.

But back on home turf, the magical wrists have locked up and the dancing feet have been nailed to the floor. In four completed innings, the top five wickets have managed just 124, 81, 213 and 103. And even the 213 was a one-man show courtesy of Virender Sehwag, whose 155 has been the only century so far by an Indian.

You can offer up any number of excuses - the umpiring at Bangalore, the final-day rain at Chennai - but great teams don't hide behind such facades. When you take Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh out of the equation, you're left with a side that has been comprehensively outplayed by an Australian team that has executed its plans with precision.

The side that impressed so many with their unity of purpose and steely character in Australia last winter have also been dominated in the mental stakes. Adam Gilchrist's reference to an Australian-like pitch ahead of this game was a barely subtle attempt at sowing seeds of doubt into Indian minds, and if Sourav Ganguly's rattled reaction was any indicator, it worked.

To a large extent, though, Australia's job has been done for them by the Board of Control for Cricket in India. When teams travel to Australia, they are pulped at Brisbane and then punched into a stupor at the WACA in Perth. By the time the series gets to Adelaide or Melbourne, it's usually over. While the surfaces at Brisbane and Perth cannot be labelled unfair, they have always favoured teams with bowlers that are fast and capable of using the seam - and Australia have usually been the leading practitioners of the art.

The BCCI, in their infinite wisdom, has opted to spurn the idea of home advantage, and this surface - with a smattering of grass that has afforded extravagant seam movement - has undoubtedly suited the old firm of McGrath, Gillespie and Kasprowicz. Preparing a sporting surface is one thing, scoring an own-goal - especially when one down in the series - quite another. The most miserable aspect of the debacle has been that you expect no better from a shambolic organisation that can't even remember to book its own players into a hotel.

At the end of the fourth day at Chennai, this was a buoyant Indian team, one that clearly fancied the challenge of chasing 210 on a final-day pitch, but subsequent events - and their fragile mental state - have sunk it like a stone. Perhaps they can take some solace from Horace, who said: "As a rule, adversity reveals genius and prosperity hides it." These are the worst of times for Indian cricket, and over the next two days, India's batting geniuses will have to draw on every ounce of inspiration if the songs of praise written for them aren't to ring hollow.