Outbatted, outbowled, outcaptained
It was not the defeat that was significant, but its manner
Siddhartha Talya
25-Feb-2013
It was not the defeat that was significant, but its manner. Australia have lost before but it's been a long time since they were so comprehensively taken apart. Throughout the fourth innings of a one-sided contest, Indian supporters waited for the feared fightback - but it never came," writes Peter Roebuck in the Sydney Morning Herald.
India might as well have been playing on a different pitch and with a different ball. It was not just the 342-run margin that told the tale. India lost 13 wickets, Australia lost 20. India's batsmen were mostly careless or caught in the deep. Their counterparts were bowled neck and crop, leg before or caught close at hand. Six visiting batsmen were bowled between bat and pad, a gap that is not supposed to exist. India played an aggressive game with cool heads. With Australia it was the reverse.
In his blog in the Australian, Jack the Insider provides a satirical review of India's resounding win over Australia in Mohali.
It’s hardly an even contest. The Australian XI is up against 1.3 billion Indians. Even counting Australia’s vast coaching staff, Ponting and the lads are heavily outnumbered. They have entered a world of doctored tracks, dodgy food and questionable tactics.
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Add to that the fact that the Indians have mastered the dark art of reverse swing. Ever see an Indian bowler with a decent manicure? It doesn’t happen. Most have fingernails like Ming the Merciless. Meanwhile, in the heavily manned slips cordon, the Indian catchers are chomping away on some local breath mint that turns their saliva into silicon.
How can this be said without being dismissed as mere wish fulfillment? How can some truths sound so implausible that they can seem like pieces of total fiction? But here it is all the same. The Australians are looking, how to say this… shabby, writes Sharda Ugra in India Today.
In Mohali, they began their pursuit of a target of 516 like bats out of hell, but their batting on this tour has been uncharacteristically circumspect. In the first three innings of this series they have scored at 2.86, 3.12 and 2.63 runs an over. Ten minutes after tea today in Mohali, they were 52 for 4. It took them half an hour to get to 58 and they lost another wicket on the way.
Siddhartha Talya is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo