India vs Australia WTC Final - 2021-23

 

India in World Test Championship Final

 

Team India reached WTC Finals for 2^nd consecutive time in 2 cycles of the tournament. On 13^th March, 2023 it was confirmed after New Zealand beat Sri Lanka in a thrilling encounter on the very last ball of the 1^st Test at Christchurch. Sri Lanka was the 3^rd team in the race after Australia and India. Australia were already reached into the Final after winning the Indore Test. And now with the help of Kiwis, India have reached there.

The 4^th Test of Border Gavaskar Trophy between India and Australia at Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad ended in a draw and Indore Test was won by Aussies, the series ended with 2-1 score line in favor of India. That’s why India’s qualification was not in there hand according to the scenario, so they were dependent on New Zealand – Sri Lanka series and waiting for New Zealand to beat Sri Lanka one game or at least one drawn game.

On the other hand Sri Lanka were required to win the test series by 2-0 to get a place in WTC Final. Which they almost tried to replicate throughout the 1^st Test by playing some outstanding cricket. But New Zealand came back strongly and won the game in the very last ball of the match on day 5. Kane Williamson played a masterpiece knock, his 27^th Test 100 in the 2^nd innings and did the job for New Zealand and India also.

It felt like the destiny wanted to have an India – Australia Final in the WTC Final on 7^th to 11^th June in Oval, England. Both the games, 4^th Test in BGT and 1^st Test between New Zealand and Sri Lanka started on the same day on 9^th March, Thursday, but before the end of 4^th test India already knew that they are in the Finals. Day 5 in Christchurch stared with rain in 1^st session but in next two sessions we saw a fabulous test match and thankfully destiny was with us and we were though to Finals.

 

2^nd Successful WTC Cycle:-

Yes, there was destiny in the form of New Zealand was there for us, who has always been a nightmare for us in ICC Knockouts. But this time they helped us. But the fact that we can’t deny or change is our team India have been excellent throughout this cycle of World Test Championship. They have continued their stellar form in back to back two WTCs. We were in the Finals last time also in 2019-21 cycle, which we lost to Blackcaps, but again we will be on the same country to play another Final and hopefully this time we will make it count.

India vs England (2021-22) (Away):-

This series was played just after the 1^st WTC ended. The Final was played in Southampton, England, between India and New Zealand. And New Zealand become Champion. Just after some days India started their 2^nd WTC Cycle from 1^st series against England at Trent Bridge, Nottingham. We saw the comeback of KL Rahul in test cricket as opener after injury to both Mayank Agarwal and Shubman Gill before this series started.

KL was dropped after West Indies series in 2019 and Rohit was made opener. Post that Rohit has never looked back till now, but KL was almost out of Test side for about 2 years. He made an excellent comeback to the test side by this series. He scored an outstanding score of 80s in 1^st innings of 1^st Test and made it double by scoring hundred at Lords in 1^st innings of 2^nd game. Rohit was terrific as opener as well alongside him. And that made that series special and easy for us.

1^st Match was a draw, but we won two quality games at Lords and Oval (2^nd & 4^th games), both in London on the last or 5^th day. Our bowlers were lethal in that series and they made that two big wins possible. However we lost the 3^rd match in Leeds and unfortunately 5^th and final game at Manchester was postponed due to Covid-19 Outbreak in Indian Camp. The match was rescheduled to next year as one of test and part of that un-complete series leading 2-1 by India.

India vs New Zealand (2021) (Home):-

The 2^nd series of this cycle was 2 home tests against New Zealand. After a heartbreaking performance in T20WC 2021, India were hosting New Zealand at home. Regular Captain Virat Kohli was rested for the 1^st match of the series at Kanpur and Vice- Captain Ajinkya Rahane was given the charge to lead the team. Although Rahane’s position in the team was point of debate during that time, but with the absence of main players like Rohit Sharma & KL Rahul (Rested) he was given that responsibility.

That series was debut series for Shreyas Iyer in red ball format and he scored a hundred in 1^st innings itself. In the 2^nd innings he also contributed with the bat, but his excellent effort gone in waste as New Zealand able to draw that Kanpur Test. However with the comeback of regular skipper Virat Kohli in 2^nd Test at Mumbai, India won it by a huge margin and won the series 1-0. But the match became memorable for New Zealand’s Azaz Patel, as he took all the 10 wickets of Indian Batting line-up during 1^st innings.

India vs South Africa (2021-22) (Away):-

After beating New Zealand at home India’s next big assignment was South Africa tour, where 3 test matches were to be played. After getting rests in home tests Rohit Sharma was expected to feature in his 1^st ever full time overseas tour as an opener. In past he had toured overseas but as opener he missed NZ and half of BGT in 2020-21. So, ideally this was going to be as full time tour and also he was given the VC role also. Due to lack of trust on Rahane.

But unfortunately he missed another series due to injury and due to that KL Rahul named as deputy for Virat Kohli in Test Series. KL played a solid knock in 1^st test at centurion and helped India to start the series on a winning note. But after that lots of drama happened in Indian Cricket. Virat Kohli who had already stepped down as T20 Captain for India, on the 31^st December Night, just before start of a new year, he was also removed from ODI Captaincy.

The reason that given by the selectors was, we don’t want split captaincy in white ball format, so, Rohit Sharma who was given captaincy in T20IS after Virat also given the ODI format captaincy. In the 2^nd test Virat was benched due to health issues and for which KL did the captaincy role. However Virat made a comeback in third and final test as captain. But unfortunately we lost both the games at Johannesburg & Cape Town and lost the series 2-1 where we were favorite to win 3-0.

After this series Indian cricket fans got the horrible news that Virat Kohli has stepped down as Test Captain also. And this was a shocker of a news for every cricket fan, means no one was expecting such type of announcement from the India’s best Test Captain. But eventually that happened due to whatever reason. India had an excellent run under Virat’s leadership in red ball cricket and that has to be carried by someone else as we were in the middle of 2^nd cycle of WTC. India’s white ball captain Rohit Sharma then made as all format captain for India.

India vs Sri Lanka (2022) (Home):-

After missing entire South Africa series due to injury, Rohit back as full time all format captain of team India. And from Sri Lanka series he started his test captaincy. It was a 2 match test series with 1^st test scheduled at Mohali, which was also 100^th test of Virat Kohli. The 2^nd test was at Bangalore. India won both the matches quite comfortably and won the series by 2-0. It was a good start for the newly appointed test skipper Rohit Sharma.

But in this series we saw some big changes were happened. Some big impact players like, Ajinkya Rahane, Cheteshwar Pujara and Ishant Sharma who had been pillars of this team for the past few years were dropped because of poor and inconsistent form. But the message to them was clear from the management, that perform in domestic and doors are always open for you all. Team played with some young players like Hanuma Bihari and Shreyas Iyer in place of them. But still got the result.

One of Test vs England (2022) (Away):-

This one-of test was the Rescheduled match from 2021 series which India were leading 2-1. Indian team travelled to UK for a complete tour during June. The match was scheduled at Edgbaston, Birmingham. This time it was a complete change as both the teams were with their new captains, from the previous time. Ben Stokes was leading England instead of Joe Root and Rohit Sharma for India not Virat Kohli. But destiny had other plans. Rohit suffered with Covid and Jaspreet Bumrah took the charge as KL was injured also.

Rishabh Pant named as VC and another big change was Pujara was back in the side after a super County Season. He opened with Shubman Gill in the absence of Rohit Sharma. India played some excellent cricket in the 1^st innings and it looked like we will create history there, but England had different plan. They just rattled us in 2^nd innings. Jonny Bairstow scored 100s in both the innings and gave us a huge defeat. The series ended with a 2-2 draw and India missed another opportunity.

Yes, if the match was played in that initial series in 2021, things could have been different as momentum was with us. But this time England was a complete different unit under Ben Stokes as Captain and Brendon McCullum as Coach. Their Bazzball approach had already stunned Blackcaps and this time we also blown out by that. In hind side we could say that, we would have won that series if Rohit or Virat would have leading the side, but the reality was we were just not good enough.

 

India vs Bangladesh (2022) (Away):-

Towards the end of 2022 in December, India travelled Bangladesh. After another heartbreaking performance in T20WC in Australia some of the key players were given rest in New Zealand tour. But they all back for Bangladesh ODIs and Tests. India lost the ODI series but more sad news was once again captain Rohit got injured and out of Test series. KL was given the captaincy role and surprisingly Cheteshwar Pujara got VC role not Rishabh Pant.

Beating Bangladesh in their home was never going to be easy with their quality spin attack. We won the 1^st test at Chattogram quite easily as that was an easier surface for batting. So, their spinner couldn’t trouble us a lot. But in 2^nd game at Dhaka, which is a heavy spin friendly surface, our vulnerable batting against spin exposed in 2^nd innings. Chasing a total of 144 we lost 7 wickets inside 80 runs, but still managed to win the test courtesy Iyer & Ashwin’s excellent 8^th wicket partnership. That pair literally saved us from humiliation and gave us 2-0 series victory.

Finally, the “Border Gavaskar Trophy” (BGT-2023) (Home):-

The last and final destination before the final was, The Border Gavaskar Trophy (BGT-2023) at home. India hadn’t loss any BGT since 2014-15 series. That was the last instance where we lost this high class series. After that it was happened 3 times and we have won it every time. 2017 (Home), 2018-19 & 2020-21 (Away). Last time when India played against Australia in tests before this series was in 2021 at Gabba. And we all know what had happened there.

Rishabh Pant and team India had created history there. But this time around India missed his hero. Unfortunately Pant met with a car accident and out of action for a long period of time. Another blow that hurt India was Jaspreet Bumrah’s injury after that England tour. He entirely missed Asia Cup 2022, T20WC 2022 and this BGT also. He is also going to miss the IPL 2023 and WTC Final along with Rishabh Pant.

But Indian team had to find their replacements and play with them. Bumrah’s absence was not a big problem for us as we have already an outstanding bowling attack. And with the matches are going to happen in spinning tracks we won’t miss him. But missing Pant was a huge set back. For his replacement, India never had a valid choice. We picked KS Bharat who was already travelling with team with Pant and a new entry given to Ishan Kishan considering his left handed batting and attacking approach just like pant.

The hype for this series was unreal and the squad that Australia have selected was also very good. Many experts said that this time Australia will surely made history. Considering both team’s current form it was clearly Australia ahead of India. But beating India in India is almost near to impossible. And apart from that handling Indian spinners is itself an uphill task for any visiting side, especially from SENA countries. But considering Australia’s last BGT in India during 2017, it was expected that they will gave 100 percent fight and effort.

In the first couple of tests at Nagpur and Delhi Australia looked clueless with batting. The pitches were prepared for spinners and testing of batters. But both the pitches were not Rank Turners which was anticipated by Australian Media on which Australia batters failed hugely. Indian batters, likes of Rohit, Axar, Jadeja and even Ashwin applied well on these pitches and scored valuable runs. Which eventually helped India to go 2-0 up in the series.

On the other hand Australia team got total confused regarding the pitch conditions that were over pointed out by their won media and made blunders regarding team selection. Imagine they dropped Travis Head, their best batter in recent times, how bad that was. Moreover they were already down mentally even after some extremely intense practice sessions. They practiced in Sydney by preparing spinning surfaces and choose squad accordingly.

Coming to India they don’t choose practice matches, instead of that they prepared with our local spinners, including one of them with similar kind of action to R Ashwin to counter our bowling sphere head. But hardly managed to apply that during game situation. Apart from that it was hard to understand, why the hell they brought Ashton Agar to India ahead of Matthew Kuhnemann. They benched Agar for two tests while brought Kuhnemann from Australia to straight into XI.

After getting 2-0 down some of the players returned back to Australia due to different reasons. David Warner got injured after 1^st two tests while Josh Hazelwood missed complete series due to injury. Ashton Agar was sent back to play domestic. But the biggest news was Pat Cummins had to go back since his Mother was not well, who sadly passed away during the series. After that he missed the remaining two tests and Steven Smith lead the team.

There was a long gap between first two tests and remaining two. Everyone thought Aussies can’t come back from this situation. Being 2-0 down in series, players getting injured and unavailable it was very difficult for them. But they had yet to qualify for WTC Final and show the World that, why they are No.1 ranked team in this format. They need someone to charge up them and Steven Smith did that role as Captain in 3^rd test at Indore.

His captaincy was spot on after losing the toss to Rohit Sharma at Indore in a rank turner. Australia bowled out India on just 109 runs, courtesy their spinner. And then India never able to get back in this match and failed in the own trap just like 2017 Pune Test. Back to back 3^rd game in this series ended inside 3 days and this time it was India in the receiving end. By this huge victory Australia not just qualified for WTC Final but also put India’s qualification scenario in question.

The pitch for the 4^th and final match of the series was made flat in Ahmedabad after horrible show of Indian batters in 3^rd test and Indore getting poor rank. Australia won the toss and choose batting and batted almost for two days. Same thing was done by Indian side also, which resulted a draw in the game. Few batters, Usman Khawja with Cameron Green from Austarlia and Shubman Gill with Virat Kohli from India scored centuries in this test.

Everyone’s innings was special, but Virat getting a test 100 after almost 3 years, his 28^th test ton, overall 75^th was the thing to remember from this test. Other than that it was a bizarre end to this wonderful series. At the end India won it by 2-1, maintaining the same score line of last 3 BGTs. This was 4^th back to back series win for India against Australia, which shows the dominance level of our team in BGT despite being so exciting and fighting matches.

One Last Effort on 7^th June:-

After all these domination, it is now coming to one last effort which is going to put up by both the teams on 7^th to 11^th June in WTC Final at Kennington Oval, London in England. It is going to back to back to finals for India in WTC. Last time we missed it, but this time we surely couldn’t afford to loose it. Yes, the domination that we have put in this particular format over the years and also against the mighty Australia is huge. And winning or losing this one of WTC Final can’t made those achievements less valued.

But as ICC have introduced a special trophy for this beautiful format, so the ultimate goal will be to winning that.  So, hopefully both the teams will be excited to play that final game and winning the trophy for the 1^st time. And as Indians we can’t wait for that because we have been waiting for it for last 10 years. And it will be great if we managed to win it just before the ODI WC in India.

So, India and Australia are ready, Bring it on……….