Much of Sydney’s garbage, after the revelry on New Year’s Eve, won’t be picked up by the city council on New Year’s Day. The collection of bins outside homes is postponed by a day. The party-road debris is swept up, but everything else needs to wait. A somewhat apt metaphor for where India find themselves in the series.
Much of the deep cleansing has to wait, tough calls on retirements have to wait, bold moves on handling transition have to wait; they just have to pick up the debris in the here-and-now, and front up for the last Test. They can still return home victorious with the Border-Gavaskar Trophy if they win at Sydney — a 2-2 result will help them retain the trophy as they are the current holders.
Australia find themselves in the city with a sense of strangeness as far as the last Test in a home series against India is concerned.
In the 2018 series against India, they had lost the penultimate Test at Melbourne and were trailing by 1-2 when they hobbled to Sydney where Cheteshwar Pujara pulped them further. In 2021, they couldn’t separate R Ashwin, suffering from a back injury, and Hanuma Vihari, hobbling with a leg injury, as India drew that penultimate Test and then won the final one at the Gabbatoir. This time, Australia are ahead 2-1 as they enter the final Test.
Unsurprisingly, the weather is the topic of discussion in Sydney. Rains are expected on Day 4 and Day 5, and if the forecast holds up, a draw can loom rather quickly. Hence, that final frenetic session in Melbourne has turned even more significant: Australia were more desperate for a win, India weren’t that stubborn in taking out a draw, that could have allowed them to hold one hand on the BGT.
For a while now, the Sydney Test’s preamble has been about the weather. Once, it used to be about how much spin it would take — the SCG is the driest and most spin-friendly track in Australia.
In recent years, regular rain has sullied that pitch talk. In Perth, it was about how fast and bouncy it was. In Adelaide, it was about how much the pink ball would seam around. In Brisbane, it was about the Gabbatoir’s track though ironically the weather intervened there. In Melbourne, it was about the ‘G’s renewal of pitches in the last two years which had changed it to a result-track. At SCG, ideally, it should be about the dryness of the track and spin, but rain talk has surfaced.
Hopefully, the elements stay away to ensure the grand finish that this dramatic series deservingly needs. But if it does intervene, then Indians have only to blame themselves for that final-day implosion at the MCG.
McGrath’s advice to Bumrah
Sun shone brightly, though, on the new year’s day at the SCG. It’s Glenn McGrath’s Pink Test of course, that had started in 2009 after the passing of his wife Jane to cancer. On Wednesday, the legend was at the SCG with his team, all in pink. He would speak about how he is a “fan” of Jasprit Bumrah. A few weeks earlier, on ABC Radio, he had shared the work he had done with the younger Bumrah during a stint at the MRF pace academy and his suggestion to remove an element from the action.
“He had good pace, but his action was completely different — short run-up, came in, was bowling quick, but he had a massive jump out, and then he’d bowl,” McGrath had recalled. “I suggested it would be better if he went straight through the crease, but he couldn’t do it. So he played like that. Then he had a problem with his knee. He sort of blew his knee out, whatever damage he did to it. When he came back, I think he had to train himself to go straight through the crease. I am not taking any credit whatsoever for that. But he had to train himself to go straight through the crease – and he is a handful.”
Will Shubman Gill return?
But India can’t win just with Bumrah running through straight and running through the Aussies, as he has been doing almost on his own on occasions. India need their batsmen not to implode.
The head coach Gambhir, as revealed by this newspaper, has had a strong talk with the team and told them that they now have to follow his decisions. But what are they going to be, apart from playing the situation? Will it be the same playing XI, with two spinners and Shubman Gill sitting out again?
EXPRESS EXCLUSIVE: Gautam Gambhir cracks whip on Team India’s chaotic dressing room: ‘Bahut ho gaya’, The Indian Express reports
Considering the dryness of the track here in general, weather notwithstanding, two spinners do make sense. Slightly ironic how India might be playing two spinners in the last two Tests, just after the exit of R Ashwin.
It’s been that kind of tour, though. For Gill to play, one of the two biggies needs to sit out – the captain or Virat Kohli. An exclamation mark at the end of the last sentence, coloured in crimson red would be apt for that situation. And it would also fit as a one-character description of this India tour: a strange, chaotic, splintered campaign, but still a chance for the rainbow of the BGT at the end. Which India would turn up at the SCG?
I’m Manas Ranjan Sahoo: Founder of “Webtirety Software”. I’m a Full-time Software Professional and an aspiring entrepreneur, dedicated to growing this platform as large as possible. I love to Write Blogs on Software, Mobile applications, Web Technology, eCommerce, SEO, and about My experience with Life.
