It is sobering to realise that India’s win on Tuesday was only their 40th outside their borders in over eight decades of Test cricket. That makes it even more valuable for a team that has seldom travelled well, and in the last four years has struggled abroad, especially outside the subcontinent.
India came back after losing the first Test, and that must give skipper Virat Kohli cause for celebration. It is possible, however, that had India agreed to the use of DRS (without Hawk-eye, let’s assume), they might even have won the series 3-0.
Forced to concentrate in hot and humid conditions, the umpires made the kind of mistakes that were easily caught on TV. Perhaps the DRS tends to be a safety net for umpires and there is a slight drop in focus because there is always a second chance.
Consciously or otherwise, captains tend to build teams in their own image, and there is a toughness about this Indian side that reflects the spirit of the captain. That Ravichandran Ashwin and Amit Mishra both made important half-centuries in the final Test pointed to this spirit.
Classical bag of tricks
Ashwin’s 21 wickets were just rewards for sticking to the fundamentals. Perhaps the presence of off spinning rival Harbhajan Singh saw Ashwin stick to the classical bag of tricks rather than experiment too much, as he does often. When he shifted his line from off or outside to leg stump, there was a proper plan, not an attempt at change for the sake of a change.
He gave credit to the close catchers for his wickets. Even a leg before can sometimes be the result of a close catcher, as the batsman tries consciously to avoid defending into the hands of one.
This was a bowlers’ series — no innings crossed the 400-mark — which means the centuries scored by batsmen from either team were special. None more so than Cheteshwar Pujara’s unbeaten 145 opening the batting in the final Test. It wasn’t perfect — the conditions were too tricky for that — but it was all heart, and it will be interesting to see if the Saurashtra batsman gets to play India’s next Test, against South Africa, two months from now. Ideally, he should be batting at number three, but in recent years he has gone from being the side’s crucial accumulator to the most dispensable top order batsman. It can be frustrating.
Before the series began, much was made of the great camaraderie the teams shared. In the inaugural press conference, the rival captains paid their opponents rich tributes. Kohli spoke of the joys of touring Sri Lanka and the respect he had for the players there. Angelo Mathews responded in kind. It was a love feast.
Yet, by the end, Kohli, ironically, was playing peace-maker between his most experienced fast bowler Ishant Sharma and whoever happened to make him unhappy, from Dinesh Chandimal to Dhammika Prasad. The verbals were bad, the physicals — shoulder scraping, demented gestures — worse. It was a blot on the series.
Ishant, who has bowled India to two of their last three wins abroad — he was the star at Lord’s last year — seemed to get pumped up after the confrontation, and was able to channelise his energies into claiming wickets. This, despite a persistent no-ball problem that might have come back to haunt him had he not dismissed Matthews after having the batsman caught behind off a no-ball.
Takeaways The series, which saw the end of one legendary performer, Kumar Sangakkara, might have spelt finis to another career too. Harbhajan Singh, taker of 417 wickets in 103 Tests looked out of place in the Indian bowling line-up. Harbhajan is 35, Ashwin 28, and clearly it is time to groom Ashwin’s successor rather than go back to the future.
Rohit Sharma is another for whom this was seen as a make-or-break series. Following two centuries in his first two Tests on debut, Sharma has been less than the stroke-playing star at number 3. The decision to send him down to No. 5 was seen as a way to protect the Mumbai batsman, who, at 28, is still being seen as one of the bright young players in the country. He finished in Sri Lanka with two 50s which is neither here nor there.
India’s problems remain. The search for an all rounder at six or seven continues. Batting under pressure is shaky, as Galle showed so spectacularly. Perhaps not quite three cheers for the win, then. But two, certainly.
