Australias Home Summer of Test Cricket concluded today with a crushing defeat of India in the final match at the Sydney Cricket Ground which was wrapped up before Tea on the 3rd Day. Australia has therefore taken the Border Gavaskar 5-match series with a convincing 3-1 final scoreline and while there was a lot of very competitive and entertaining cricket played across the series, Australia was unquestionably dominant in home conditions. If not for bad weather in Brisbane that caused one match to be drawn, Australia would have probably won the series 4-1.
Apart from bragging rights, this result means that Australia will now qualify for the World Test Championship Final in June which will be played at Lords, England against South Africa. I dare say that Australia will be red hot favourites to win that match too and become the first back to back winners of that World Test Championship after previously taking it out in 2023.
As for this series though, there are a lot of things I could talk about but I’ll focus on a couple of the more prominent themes that I follow. At the start of the Australian summer there was a lot talk about who would replace David Warner at the top the Australian batting order. Nathan McSweeney was given a chance in the first 3 tests but with scores of 10, 0, 39, 10*, 9 and 4 the selectors went another way for the last 2 games by giving promising (and brash) 19 year old Sam Konstas a chance. His 60 runs off 65 balls in his first outing at Melbourne captured everyone attention as he slapped the worlds best test bowler Jasprit Bumrah all over the park. I personally think Sam cemented the position right there and it's now his to lose.
Bumrah was himself quite brilliant in a losing side, though he did succumb to injury in the final test. Hopefully he recovers soon. Top Indian batsman Virat Kohli was very disappointing as he was dismissed in a similar way in every innings – knicking off to deliveries outside off stump that he probably could have left. Some of his antics over the series were fairly poor too. He’s a great batman who might have lost a few fans over the course of the series. Regular captain Rohit Sharma was also fairly poor and he missed the first and last test for various non-injury-related reasons. The bright spot for India was probably the emergence of young opening batsman Yashasvi Jaiswal who I thought showed a lot of potential with a big 161 in Perth and 2 impressive innings of 82 and 84 in Melbourne. Keep an eye out for him because he could be quite special.
For Australia the national team now heads off to Sri Lanka for a couple of Test Matches while the Big Bash domestic competition finishes off here locally. After that the Champions Trophy takes centre stage in February which will become the main focus of the cricket world until mid-March. Keep an eye out for that one because it’s a 50-Over format (my favourite) and it will be another great cricket tournament to watch with a lot of the worlds best players taking part.
