Opinion: Taming The Aussies: How India Is Staying On Top Down Under

Twenty-one of the 25 most venomous snakes in the world can be found in Australia. But they are not the only deadly things Down Under. Just ask any visiting Test team. The pitches, the weather, the aggression, the crowd, the players, the overwhelming stadiums, the centuries-old history of Australian cricket that tells tales of unmatched glory and dominance—it's almost like it was all meticulously designed to make touring parties feel uncomfortable and eventually fold and surrender. Consider this:from 1993-94 to 2008-09, the Aussies were unbeaten at home in 28 consecutive home Test series.

In the last three decades (1994-95 to now), Australia have a Test win percentage of over 80 at home. Not surprisingly, tales of a Test match or series win by a visiting team are passed down from father to son to grandson. Jasprit Bumrah spoke about how he has ‘stories' to share with his son when he grows up after India won the Perth Test this time to go 1-0 up.

A Growing Self-Confidence

But then, not too many teams sport the badge of having beaten Australia in Australia. From 2000 till now, only two teams have won consecutive Test series in Australia—South Africa (2008-16) and India (2018-19 and 2020-21). And if the first Test of the ongoing series in Perth was anything to go by, it would be fair to say that Team India is a different beast altogether in Australian conditions now. No matter how wounded they are, no matter how young the squad, the self-belief that they can beat the Aussies in their own den is something that does not desert them these days. Though they had won historic back-to-back series on their last two tours, this time, Team India went into the five-Test series as the underdogs. After all, they had been whitewashed by the Kiwis and completely humbled at home in a three-Test series for the first time ever. That coupled with the fact that Australia began the series as the No. 1 team and that the first Test was played at the traditionally fast and bouncy Western Australia venue of Perth (albeit at the newer Optus stadium) meant that the home team were tagged favourites. And yet, the ultimate result was a comprehensive 295-run win for India as they breached the Perth fortress—something they couldn't do on their 2018-19 tour (Perth didn't host a Test on India's last tour in 2020-21). And that too without the services of the likes of Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill and Mohammed Shami. According to reports from Australia, India are the bookmakers' favourites to win the series now.

Virat Kohli's one-line response after Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese complimented him and the Indian team for their performance in Perth this time, “We've always got to add our own spice to it”, was reflective in many ways of the confidence that the Indian team exudes on Australian shores these days. Gone are the days when a draw was considered to be a suitable result. Now, it's all about the win, regardless of venue. There's not an iota of a fear factor. 

What's Driving Team India?

Indian teams of the past fought valiantly against the mighty Aussies on their shores, with many heroes emerging. Now they go in armed with the self-confidence that they are the better team. 

You can see the same confidence building up in the fans as well. Indian fans these days expect to see superlative performances from the travelling players. A series win in Australia is no longer the holy grail of foreign travel for the Indian team. It's sweet, but no longer surprising.

So, what has changed?

The main ingredient in the recipe for success for Team India Down Under is self-belief—staunch, unwavering belief that they can tackle whatever is thrown their way and also, most importantly, give the Aussies a taste of their own medicine. The world saw how India bounced back after being bowled out for 150 in their first innings in the Perth Test to skittle out Australia for 104 in their first. On their last tour, they roared back after being bundled out for 36 in the first Test—their all-time lowest innings total—to ultimately win the series. They know they will be hit, but they also know that they can get right back up and deliver a counter-punch.

The Indian Test team has been a real force to be reckoned with for decades now, but on the Aussie shores, the winds of change began to really blow from the 2014-15 tour. India lost the 4 Test series 0-2, but after losing the first two Tests in Adelaide and Brisbane, the way they held on for two straight draws in Melbourne and Sydney drew praise from all quarters. In fact, in Adelaide, chasing 364 for a win, they almost pulled off an improbable win, getting to 315 in their second innings. India lost the series, but the major takeaway was the belief that they were getting very close to vanquishing the mighty Aussies on their own soil.

The Last Two Tours

And that knowledge is what the touring Indian party carried with them for the 2018-19 and 2020-21 tours. Both were four-Test series and India won both by a margin of 2-1. After becoming the first Asian team to win a Test series in Australia in 2018-19, on the last tour, the Indian batters put their bodies on the line, as injury after injury ravaged their camp. They had to rely on net bowlers to draw up a playing XI, and yet, while being down to 265/5, chasing 328 to win in the last Test in Brisbane and without the services of Virat, they were confident enough to go for the win and not try and settle for a safe draw.

The series was locked at 1-1 at that stage. They risked a series loss to pull off an unforgettable 3-wicket match win that also gave them the series. This win, while scripting Test cricket history, did two very important things—it was validation that offence could be the best form of defense in Australia, and it sent out a very strong message to the Aussie camp that their traditional fortresses were no longer safe. If you can dig your claws into your opposition's psyche, that mental hold can be very difficult to shake off. We all saw how the body language of the Australians almost suggested that they had given up when the Indian batters refused to give an inch in their second innings of the Perth Test this time, piling up 487/6 declared.

Young Blood

Identifying young talent who can be game changers and are ready to fight fire with fire, and throwing them into the deep end if required, has also been a strategy that's worked. While old warhorses like Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane stood tall, some of the main architects of India's series win, especially the crucial fourth Test win on their last tour, were players like Shubman Gill, Rishabh Pant, Mohammed Siraj, Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur and T. Natarajan. Pant and Gill were the third and sixth-highest run-getters, respectively, on the tour. In Mohammed Siraj, the team realised that they had found a bowler who could take the rigours of Test cricket while troubling the best in the world. Siraj made his Test debut in the second Test in Melbourne on the last tour and finished as India's leading wicket-taker and the third-highest overall (13 wickets). He lost his father while he was in Australia, during the Covid-19 pandemic, but chose to stay on and play. Natarajan went from net bowler to making his debut across all three formats on that tour. On the current tour, the leading run scorer so far (before the start of the second Test) is the 22-year-old Yashasvi Jaiswal (161 runs)—only the third Indian cricketer to score a century on his debut tour of Australia. Harshit Rana's selection raised a few eyebrows. As things stand right now, the 22-year-old from Delhi is the third-highest wicket-taker (4 wickets) in the current series.

The IPL has also made a contribution. Thanks to international players spending so much time with young Indian talent, gone are the days when established international cricketers were put on a pedestal by their juniors. While there is a lot of respect for battle-hardened veterans, the young crop also believes that they are not inferior in any way. A Jaiswal will hit a Mitchell Starc or a Josh Hazelwood for a boundary off the first ball he faces. A Rana will not think twice before walking up to a batter on his follow-through to chirp in his ear a bit.

Pitch, Perfect

Fast bowlers who have been coming up the ranks in recent times will also thank the changing nature of pitches used for domestic matches in India. Grass on Indian tracks is no longer an alien sighting. Earlier this year, the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association became the first cricketing body in the country to install hybrid pitches at the Dharamsala stadium. These are natural turfs injected with synthetic fibres that allow the grass to regenerate, in turn allowing much more cricket to be played on a single surface.

The new-age Indian batter is not afraid of going after the Aussie pacers and the fast-bowling set-up (fuelled by a now constant supply line) can rattle any opposition line-up, in any conditions.
Ravi Shastri has backed the possibility of a hat-trick of series wins in Australia for India. As things stand right now, with Virat Kohli having found form, Rohit Sharma and Shubman poised to return to the playing XI and a possibility of Shami being added to the squad at a later date, you would have to be very brave to bet against that.

(The author is a former sports editor and primetime sports news anchor. He is currently a columnist, features writer and stage actor)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author

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