Remember how AB turned it?

Australians forget when the West Indian quicks were fearsome, Allan Border, took 11 wickets at the SCG in 1989 on a surface that was tailor-made for a bowler of his modest credentials

Never let the facts get in the way of a good conspiracy theory.  Donald Trump has certainly made an art form of this. Now, in the wake of India making the Final of the Test Championship vs New Zealand, it appears that sour grapes are in season in Australia.

The usual gripes about doctored pitches were inevitable after India won the third Test against England in Ahmedabad. Neutral observers pointed out that whilst the pitch may not have been a good batting surface, it was nonetheless no different to any other low-scoring Test; references to Hobart, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Trent Bridge, Lord’s and many NZ venues where fast bowlers dominated cut no mustard with the conspiracy theorists. They refused to accept that England not only won the toss in Ahmedabad but that in the third Test, they chose to go in with just one recognised spinner and then subsequently bleated about it being a raging turner.

Here’s another one; Joe Root took five wickets so it must have been a bad pitch. If it was that bad, why did the part-time spinner overshadow the main tweaker? Short memories...many Australians forget when the West Indian quicks were fearsome, Allan Border, took 11 wickets at the Sydney Cricket Ground in 1989 on a pitch that was tailor-made for a bowler of his modest credentials.

The wind was taken out of the sails in the fourth Test when England again won the toss and lost the Test. This is becoming something of a habit, yaar? This time, only two of the 10 Indian wickets fell to a spinner. Oh dear...so much for the doctored pitch theory...Jimmy Anderson and Ben Stokes were lion-hearted in taking seven wickets between them but it doesn’t say much for poor old Jack Leach, does it?  

Don’t forget that this was a series where both Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah hardly fired a shot in anger. If you had to pick a World XI, these might be the only two players selected by even the most jaundiced Aussie fans and they barely contributed. So put that in your conspiracy pipe and smoke it before making half-cocked accusations about Australia being “cheated” out of their place in the World Test Championship final.

I had to shoot down another conspiracy theory (I prefer to call it a lie) about the BCCI’s reluctance to play Tests in Perth or Brisbane.  In 2007-08, India beat Australia by 72 runs at the WACA and were then thrashed handsomely in 2018-19 at the new Perth Stadium. The two respective Man of the Match awards went to Irfan Pathan (hardly a fearsome quick!) and Nathan Lyon. So there goes the lie about India (a) refusing to play in Perth and (b) it necessarily being a death sentence in recent years. When it comes to Brisbane, the famous ‘Gabbatoir’ that Tim Paine was so keen to welcome Ravichandran Ashwin to, let the recent record speak for itself!  This too from an Indian team that was virtually a third XI bowling attack.

In this column, I said years ago that once India became the dominant force in world cricket, I could not envisage a time when anybody would ever catch them again. There will be occasional blips on the radar but with the sheer numbers and the single-minded passion for the sport, it is hard to see how any other nation will consistently go toe-to-toe with India over a long period of time. As I have said before, India now have the batsmen (and the technique) to take on the short ball away from home. They now have a long line of fast bowlers who can match it with the best of the world. And in someone like Ravi Shastri, they have a fearless voice who refuses to let his team believe that they are inferior. His impassioned speech immediately after the fourth Test was almost Churchillian in spirit and defiance. Here is a proud man who was playing when India was bullied by the big boys, he tasted success as a player and is now determined to never taste the bitterness of benevolent paternalism again from colonial masters of a fading Empire.

The final against New Zealand will be a chance to showcase what cricket can look like at its very best. This is an opportunity for India to play their best cricket against a team that will give nothing away for free but who have consistently maintained standards that the rest of the world can aspire to. It is indeed a chance for the ICC to bask in the warm London sunshine (is that an oxymoron?) of the two best teams in the world who have the maturity to reflect what the spirit of cricket truly stands for. Pimms and lemonade with strawberries for the neutrals, please. Sour grapes will be on the menu for those who forget their sunscreen and end up with red necks!

Michael Jeh is a Brisbane-based former first-class cricketer. Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.
Clayton Murzello’s column, Pavilion End, will be back next week.

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