Not even the absence of three important players stopped India from winning
The message on the scoreboard told the tail: "India stays No 1 Australia goes to No 5" And it was a job well done. At the critical time young India stood up to be counted and old Australia floundered. A confident partnership between two novices put the hosts on the road to victory.
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Dravid and Tendulkar embraced after the winning runs were taken. They have been an important part of the Indian team that ended the Australian supremacy. Empires cannot be felled with a single blow. Rather, it takes a concerted campaign conducted by opponents of high calibre. India has met that challenge and not even the absence of three important players stopped them. Mohali was a close run thing but India secured a decisive victory in Bangalore.
Sending Pujara into bat at first wicket down proved to be a masterstroke. He is a highly regarded batsman and has been pencilled in to replace Dravid. In the first innings, he had been forced to sit with pads on whilst the third wicket pair added 308. Inevitably, he fell foul of a grubber as soon as he took guard. Promoting him was an act of faith and a way of adding experience to the middle order.
Brilliant Pujara
Pujara took his chance impressively. After losing Vijay, he enjoyed the privilege of batting with his hero. He was a year old when Sachin Tendulkar played his first Test. Now he was batting with him. No wonder, he found the confidence to clip and cart the ball around. Probably, he did not know about his team's Bangalore jinx. For that matter he was not born the last time the Australians lost three consecutive Tests.
Australia did not put up the expected resistance on the final day. Ricky Ponting's side batted, bowled and fielded badly. Rather than bowling straight and setting a tight field as the wearing pitch demanded, they banged the ball halfway down and allowed the second wicket pair to score on both sides of the wicket. Every run was precious, but the batsmen were not made to work for them.
As a result, the score rattled along at six runs an over in the morning and hardly slowed thereafter. Striking the right balance between aggression and containment is one of the skills in the game.
Arguably, Australia over-attacked with the ball and was too accommodating in the field. The quick scoring also prevented reverse swing playing its expected role.
After lunch, the visitors took a couple of wickets but the tension did not rise significantly. Certainly, the pitch played well. Certainly, the visitors lacked a speedster as resourceful as Zaheer Khan and a spinner as menacing as Harbhajan Singh. Even so, it was lacklustre display.
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