Almanac Cricket – The 2023 Border/Gavaskar Trophy Series, Second Test: I just don’t get it!

 

 

After taking a few days to try to think it through and make some sense of it all, I still just don’t get how the Australian men’s Test team blew an unusually solid position at the end of Day 2 in just 90 minutes at the start of Day 3. It’s a bit like Joey Johns after NSW loses a State of Origin decider against the Maroons – he doesn’t get that the players don’t seem to get it.

 

Perplexing, bewildering, exasperating…but, fortunately, most of us eventually realise that it’s just a game and get on with life. But if you’re on a motza contract where something far better is expected/required, how do you process the capitulation?

 

Twenty years ago Matthew Hayden spent months and months practising umpteen versions of the sweep shot in preparation for the tour of India. I can’t recall if any of his adaptations included the reverse edition. Please correct me if I’m wrong. In his case, it worked and he enjoyed a useful series. I don’t remember too many of his team-mates employing the reverse sweep very often. Again, I invite correction if needed. On that tour, the Australians also had at least one first class lead-up match before the First Test of that series. Nothing like a real game to help adapt to local conditions.

 

Leap ahead to 2023 and it seems that so many mistakes have been made in how we’ve gone about trying to defeat the dragon that is India on its home soil. The squad selected had questions marks all over it. Ashton Agar? Really? And then not select him ahead of a kid with all of 7 first class matches under his belt? Then leave him out again in favour of another newbie flown in after the loss in Nagpur? Why take Swepson who has already returned on compassionate grounds? And why choose at least three bowlers carrying injuries from the domestic season? Now Hazlewood is coming home without making an appearance at all. Starc and Green are no certainties to play next week. What about the omission of Head for the First Test in spite of his stellar Australian summer. Are you serious? Then there was no lead-in first class match, just a series of nets (dragging in anyone who looked like they could bowl spin) and centre wicket sessions. Do you call that preparation?

 

And then we get to the start of Day 3. Pat wins the toss (again!) and we get the benefit of what are likely to be the best conditions. After two solid days of gritty, not very pretty grind, we’re 60+ ahead with nine wickets in hand, presented with a precious opportunity to consolidate, take the crowd out of the equation and instil uncertainty into Indian minds.

 

So what happens? Utter capitulation in a batting display that we might expect by the Under 14Bs on a Saturday morning somewhere on a back oval in suburbia. Total ineptitude. And a seeming obsession with the reverse sweep as Plan A with no B, C or D anywhere to be seen.

 

Were India’s spinners that good and the pitch so difficult? Labuschagne might have been a bit unlucky with one that kept unusually low but most of the other dismissals were crude, some unforgivable and, overall, humiliating. How come India’s batsmen were able/chose to play in a more orthodox fashion – straight and using their feet? It looked like men against novices.

 

And now we have all of 10 days to try to come up with some sort of a new approach. There are stories of Cameron Bancroft being flown in for the injured Warner, suggestions that several players be sent home, not that I’m sure of what that’s supposed to mean or achieve. Coach McDonald is under the pump; Captain Pat is looking very human; and who knows how bad those scars, first inflicted in Nagpur, are being inflamed by this latest defeat. If a lot of elite sport is played between the ears, then we’re in strife as we looked clueless on that last day.

 

I just don’t get it. I’m never this negative, preferring to look for a silver lining somewhere. Maybe that’s Murphy and Kuhnemann. I fear my pre-series prediction of a 0-3 series defeat may be optimistic.

 

Will someone please offer me some optimism? Kobe Jacobs, can the younger generation find a glint of hope? Or an elder statesman like Citrus Bob?

 

Meanwhile, over the Ditch, Bazball is powering on.

 

It’s a funny old game.

 

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