By Ashok Kumar
Indeed, India beat Australia by a record margin of 320 runs on a tailor made pitch but questioning the supremacy of the Australians by just one victory is too immature and too early conclusion by the print and visual media to judge the series.
Of course, India dominated the second test but were great pressure in the first test being able to just manage a draw. India is still too far to dislodge Australia as number one. India still needs to overcome the number two — the South Africans.
Meanwhile, in both the matches the good thing for cricket is the fact that they went into the fifth day where the matches end even before the fourth day.
For the record, commentator Ravi Shastri said The margin of 320 runs is India’s biggest victory in Test cricket (not counting innings victories). The Australians line up to congratulate the Indians as they troop off the ground. Dhoni’s got a stump as a souvenir, but, seeing that Ganguly doesn’t have one, he gives it to him.”Cant get better from an Indian bowling point of view — Bhajji starts it all, Ishant chimes in, Zaheer joins the party and now Mishra wants to wrap it up. Good all round performance,” says Ravi.
Kris Srikkanth, the chairman of selectors, high-fives each of the Indian players as they go into the dressing room. There’s a particularly big one for Dhoni, who’s been fantastic in this match. Fantastic with the bat, and in the field.
Ponting: “Right from the first morning India were nice and aggressive. They took the momentum away from us early in the game. They thoroughly deserve their victory and congratulations to them … We’ll probably have a couple of days off after this, back to back matches are always hard. We’ll fine-tune our skills before the next Test … They’re a very good bowling attack, their two seamers were terrific and they used the reverse swing well.”
Tendulkar is being given an award from the PCA for becoming the highest run-scorer in Test cricket. One more trophy for an overflowing cabinet. Sourav Ganguly also gets one for it being his final Test in Mohali.
Dhoni: “We got the perfect start after winning the toss and we were up to the mark in all departments. It was a very good track to bat on. I think Mishra bowled really well after a perfect start from the fast bowlers. It was a perfect Test match for us … A lot depended on how quickly we could get the reverse swing going for nothing much was happening with the new ball. We were able to reverse swing the ball from the 12th or teh 13th over and after that it became hard for the batsman.
Dhoni is also the Man-of-the Match for his two aggressive half-centuries and for his captaincy. His had a terrific match.
India went into the fifth morning with visions of victory and Zaheer helped realize that as he struck with three early wickets. He first removed Brad Haddin, with the moving in late and the rattle the stumps of the batsmen. The next to go was Cameroon White with the ball reversing. This time the ball went away from the batsmen and he got an outside edge and neatly taken by MS Dhoni.
Australia then lost Brett Lee, as Zaheer again swung the ball late and chip his off-stump to make Australia eight dow. They were 157/8.
Amit Mishra cleaned up the remaining two batsmen as he dismissed both Mitchell Johnson and Michael Clarke in quick succession to give India a mammoth 320 runs win over Australia
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