India Cricket Tour 2004 - Test Preview

The searing heat, noise, smells, crowds. India – home to a billion people - is an endless assault on the senses.

For the Australian team, to play and win in the dusty cauldrons in this part of the world is the ultimate challenge in international cricket.

In October, only 10 months after India almost spoiled Steve Waugh’s farewell series, the Australian side led by new skipper Ricky Ponting, will be heading to the sub-continent to once again face a team described as an awakening giant.

If there were a heavyweight championship of international cricket, this would be it - the world champs up against the pretenders to the crown.

While it may have not won the enthralling series over the summer, the Indian side certainly took the points and the merciless batting of Dravid, Laxman, Tendulkar and Co. was the stuff of both dreams and nightmares depending on which team you supported.

By securing the 1-1 draw away from home India helped erase the memory of Australia’s crushing 3-0 series victory back in 1999/2000, the only time Australia has triumphed in the battle for the Border-Gavaskar trophy.

To reclaim the trophy on Indian soil will prove a huge task for Ponting and a team, while still intimidating, is undergoing a regeneration process.

Last time the Australian team was in India in 2001 it arrived at the height of their powers having just won 15 consecutive Tests.

The side started with the confidence and swagger that suggested three-decades of failure on Indian soil was about to be broken when it won the opening Test in Mumbai.

India levelled the series at the intimidating concrete monolith of Eden Gardens in Kolkota in one of the greatest Tests of all time.

An Indian side bowled out cheaply were forced to follow on but the immaculate Rahul Dravid (160) and the sublime VVS Laxman (281), in scenes to be replayed in Australia recently, decimated a tiring attack. Australia fell 171 runs short of their target of 386 in the fourth innings.

A Matthew Hayden double ton in the last Test at Chennai was not enough to save an Australian side mesmerised by the off-spin of Harbhajan Singh and the hosts just held on for a two-wicket win to end an enthralling battle.

While it may have lost, the series produced many inspirational moments by the Australian side fighting not just a formidable opposition but the harsh elements where staying healthy is sometimes difficult enough let alone playing cricket.

The unbearable conditions have produced some super human efforts by the Aussies over the years, none better than Dean Jones’s amazing double century in the tied Test in Madras in 1986.

After batting for a day and suffering extreme dehydration, Jones vomited repeatedly in 40 plus degree heat and expressed his doubts to captain Allan Border as to whether he could carry on.

In goading Jones on, Border questioned whether he was man enough for the job. Jones continued, amassed 210 and lost seven kilograms in a day’s play.

He headed straight to hospital and into folklore following one of the greatest knocks of all time.

In 1998 Mark Waugh notched his highest Test ton of a 153 not out in Bangalore. After reaching 58 by the end of the second day’s play he dragged himself out of bed to resume his innings the next morning despite vomiting throughout the night and suffering from the shakes and diarrhoea.

He could not warm up, hardly run between wickets, yet still helped put Australia on the path to victory.

Ponting’s charges will have to show their own fighting qualities if they are to become the first Australian team to win a series in India since Bill Lawry’s team triumphed 3-1 amid the riots that marred the 1969 tour.

They will be up against an Indian team still riding high following their performance in Australia that highlighted just how few weaknesses it possesses.

The Indian batting line-up is riddled with class from the dashing opener Virender Sehwag to Laxman at No.6. Nestled in between is Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly and batting genius Sachin Tendulkar.

In the bowling ranks, the Aussies have been tormented by off-spinner, Singh, and leg-break bowler Anil Kumble over the last two series and will be desperate to find a way to combat their effectiveness on the dusty, spinning wickets of India.

For Australia to succeed, they are going to need their big guns to fire. The Indian side has been a bogey team for many of the senior Australian players, particularly Shane Warne and Adam Gilchrist.

Warne’s 29 wickets in 11 matches has come at a cost of 55.44 runs while Gilchrist, despite his memorable century in Mumbai in 2001, has scored 441 runs in 10 matches at an average of 29.40.

India is country that confronts at every turn from the searing heat and humidity to the abject poverty. Teams need to be on top of their game physically and mentally to succeed.

Ponting, has the chance to achieve what many of his predecessors including Border, Taylor and Waugh, never could – to win a series in India. It continues to remain the final frontier for the men in baggy green.