Around the Wicket - 2nd Test Review

Australia vs India 2nd Test Review

2 tests left to play in India, and just 2 chances left for Australia to retain the Border-Gavaskar trophy. Lose either test, and the trophy goes to India. It’s hard to see how Australia can sneak a win at the moment though. They should have won in Bangalore, but couldn’t get the job done, and they got smacked in Mohali – outplayed in every aspect of the game.

As bad as Australia were (and they were terrible), India were awesome. Their bowling is the reason the won this test, with Mishra (on debut if you don’t mind), Zaheer, and Ishant all over the top of the Aussies. Their batting is very formidable, as expected – although Gambhir is proving to be better than I thought he would be, and Sehwag has added more than just slogging to his game now. Dhoni’s captaincy was great too. He’s imaginative and attacking – and it’s just one more reason Kumble should not play for the rest of the series. I reckon India are about 12 – 24 months away from the situation Australia is currently in, so the BCCI would do well to try and stagger the imminent departures where they can. Otherwise, we will see Dravid, Ganguly, Tendulkar, and Kumble all leave the game at the same time – possibly even after this series should they win it.

Nothing bad out of this test for India – normally I like to go through the good and bad for each side, but there’s just no bad for India… maybe Zaheer Khan being charged for getting a bit too enthusiastic at dismissing Matthew Hayden. But that’s it.

Australia on the other hand, has bad news galore. The batting has been woeful. Too many batsmen are getting starts, and not going on with it. That suggests to me that they aren’t mentally tough enough, and might not want to be doing the hard yards. 60’s and 70’s are ok, but they need to be converted to big hundreds. It’s not happening at the moment, and needs to happen to win test matches. As for the bowling (especially Brett Lee), well it lacks penetration at the moment, although Stuart Clark coming back into the side will help those matters. However, the lack of a spinner who can either take wickets or contain India is hurting Australia drastically. Cameron White was ok for what he is, but he’s not even a regular bowler at Shield level. It’s not critical to have a great spinner in your team to win matches, but it’s critical to have at least a good one in your team when you tour India, if you want to be competitive. Also – the captaincy is not great. I’m going to reserve my judgement on Ponting’s captaincy until the end of the series – because I will need a whole blog for it, but at the moment, I can tell you I think he’s struggling big time.

Post-match – I heard Ponting say something along the lines of “skills can’t improve drastically mid series, but mind sets can”. It’s a shame they left the psychologist at home then, about the only staff member who didn’t come along for the ride. He would probably remind them to focus on positives, and ignore the negatives. The positives? Well, Shane Watson looks to be proving that he belongs at test level, Mitch Johnson looks to be doing the same, Stuey Clark will come back into the side, Michael Clarke batted well in the 2nd dig here, and Mike Hussey is batting well too. The other positive is that we’re not playing well. If we played well and got belted, then there would be cause for concern. But we played poorly, and got the result we deserved.

I would expect the Aussies to show a significantly improved effort in Delhi. Can they win the 3rd test and level the series? Unlikely. Can they draw the 3rd test and keep the series alive. Possibly. It’s going to be epic, one way or another.