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Ravi Shastri lauds Rahane's captaincy for 'one of the greatest comebacks' in history

For whatever it meant for the fans of cricket and especially Indian fans, the win at the MCG in the Boxing Day Test was indeed a special moment for the men in blue. But, for Ravi Shastri who has garnered more headlines and attention for his bullish statement than his observations as the coach of the India team, it was ‘one of the great comebacks in the history of the game.’ Shastri was the man addressing the post-match press conference after India’s eight-wicket win over the hosts, the coach did not hold back pulling out his another set of hyperbole. To be fair to him, he explained that the events such as getting bundled out for 36 runs in Adelaide and then turning things around swiftly in a short period of three days as the reasons behind him rating the win so highly. "This will go down in the annals of Indian cricket...world cricket...as one of the great comebacks in the history of the game. To be rolled over for 36 and then three days later get up and be ready to punch was outstanding. I think the boys deserve all the credit for the character they've shown. A real character," Shastri said in the virtual press conference. India were dominating the proceedings of the Test match on the back of stellar bowling performances by bowlers accompanied by proactive captaincy by Ajinkya Rahane. He backed his instincts to pull out tricks that outfoxed the hosts' batsmen. In the second innings as well when the lower order of the Australian batting line up tried hard to grind it out and delay the inevitable, he was calm and kept all his bowlers focussed and did not allow the hosts to get running away with the game. He was tied down when Umesh Yadav went off the field to never come back to bowl, but his reassurances helped the debutant Siraj bowl with a full heart and it paid dividends for the team. Coach Shastri was highly appreciative of Rahane’s shrewdness as well as calmness while being in control of the proceedings in the middle. "He's a very shrewd leader, he has a good understanding of the game, he's a good reader of the game. And I think that his calm composure out there in the middle helped the debutants as well, helped the bowlers as well. There was a calming influence there. And in spite of losing Umesh, he did a great job out there," Shastri said of Rahane’s qualities as the captain of the side. However, Shastri downplayed the widely-discussed aspect of Rahane that he is a bowlers’ captain and said that he was not aware of any term like that. “I don't know, I'm hearing it for the first time. What is a bowling captain? There is no definition as such for that," Shastri argued. The team dominated the hosts in all aspects of the game, but in Shastri’s views, it was Rahane’s ton that set the tone and snatched the momentum away from the Aussies. He said that the right-hander came at a crucial juncture, but went on to bat for six hours when the condition for batting was the toughest out of the playing conditions in the four days of the Test match. For his magnificent hundred in the first innings to set up a lead for India, and guiding the team home while chasing on the fourth day, Rahane was awarded Man of the Match award. "I think it [turning point] was the innings of Ajinkya Rahane. The discipline on such a big stage in a massive arena. To come as captain of your team, bat at No. 4; when he came out to bat we were two down for 60 and then to bat 6 hours on probably the toughest day to bat. Because it was overcast all day, the sun never came out and he batted for 6 hours. Unbelievable concentration. I thought that was the turning point, his innings was the turning point," he added. There were some tough calls made by the team management that also included Shastri himself and playing Jadeja as the fifth bowler as well as banking on him and Rishabh Pant to cover for the void left by Virat Kohli was one of the prominent ones. In the hindsight, Jadeja’s addition turned out to be a masterstroke as Umesh Yadav got injured in the second innings, leaving the team with only four bowling options and Shastri does not want to walk back on the decision of playing five bowlers. He believes that Jadeja has grown as a genuine all-rounder and that he can bat at the number six or even five position if the team needs, and it brings another advantage for the team. He's [Jadeja] a genuine allrounder. That's why he bats where he does. He can bat at 6, he can bat at 5 on a given occasion. He's a genuine, genuine all-rounder. And he lends a lot of balance to the side. Also when you play overseas there's always a chance of one of the bowlers getting injured, like you saw with Umesh. So with Jadeja, it gives a better balance and it also gives the fast bowlers some respite with Jaddu and Ash doing the bowling," Shastri said of Jadeja. Shastri also heaped praise on Siraj to bowl long spells and put in a lot of effort while bowling in the second innings when the pitch was not providing any bit of assistance. Shastri emphasized the importance of playing an aggressive brand of cricket and said that playing with that kind of approach rubs on to the players when they are given an opportunity in big matches like the MCG Test. "That's the brand of cricket we have been playing for the last three or four years," Shastri said. "When you saw these two debutants show that kind of maturity and discipline there, it was great to see. Today Siraj's effort was outstanding actually. He might not have the numbers to show for it but the discipline and the ability to bowl long spells, the maturity he showed for someone playing his first Test, doing the job he had to do once we lost Umesh, was outstanding.” Other than Jadeja’s decision, the team management had also decided to drop Prithvi Shaw and handed a debut to Shubman Gill, who according to Shastri batted with more maturity than someone batting in his debut Test test match. He credited Gill for batting with confidence and praised the right-hander for not shying away from the big fight against the Australian pace bowlers whom he combated with absolute flair. "Shubman going and playing with that kind of flair, later on, was great to see. Great character. More than anything else, great character. He looked very very mature for someone playing his first Test match. He looked very calm and composed. Wasn't afraid to play his shots, which was great to see. Even in the second innings, it was very easy to get into a shell but he went out there and played his natural game, which was great from the team point of view." India must have felt dejected after the humiliation they received on the third day of Adelaide and with Virat Kohli returning home along with the injury to Mohammed Shami must have complicated matters for the team management. It would not have been unwise of the team management to discuss the loss and the way forward from the debacle in Adelaide, but Shastri said that there were no chats about the third day of the Adelaide Test as he believed that the key for performances like the one the team pulled off at the MCG was to move on from the disastrous half an hour period at the Adelaide Oval that cost India the game they had nominated for the most part. "No chat. And when we arrived in Melbourne, it was the things we have got to do to get up and fight,” Shastri added. Shastri confirmed the return of Rohit Sharma, who will join the team tomorrow and it has given the team management a problem of plenty from the situation of plenty of problems in Adelaide as Gill has looked solid and ideally can’t be dropped without doing anything wrong but to stabilize the shaky top order. However, Mayank Agarwal has looked out of sorts in all the four innings he has batted on the tour so far, and with the return of Rohit, the team management will have to contemplate taking another big decision on whether Rohit should be induced back to the playing XI without having any sort of match practice. "About Rohit - he joins the team tomorrow. So we'll have a chat with him to see where he's placed physically because he's been in quarantine for the last couple weeks. We've also got to see how he feels before we take the call.”

Inside Out | Shubman Gill announces his arrival in Tests. But the real test begins now

When Ajinkya Rahane-led team management would have decided to hand Shubman Gill his Test debut at the MCG, it must have been with the expectations of some substance, and not only promises, because his predecessor at the top of the order—Prithvi Shaw had that in abundance. The expectation of substance from Gill has not come purely on the basis of his run-scoring alone, but the team management including Rahane had seen him for close quarters while he was batting in the two tour games leading up to the first Test at Adelaide. This team under Virat Kohli is highly competitive and it seems there are more than one contenders for each spot in the XI, and hence the players sitting in the wings have two initial tasks at their hands while they think of playing on the big stage. First, to break into the playing XI and then after succeeding in that, paying off the faith immediately as others are knocking the door very hard which would be opened in case of failure to convert promises into substance. It can be widely argued that the latter puts a lot of pressure on young players but they have no options but to live with the fact that in Virat Kohli’s team, there are no rooms for players not delivering on their promises with limited opportunities in the team and that not all players get an equal amount of chances to prove their worth. Gill got the opportunity to fulfil the first task on the very first day of his Test debut after Indian bowling attack pulled off a heroic bowling efforts to bundle Australia below 200 runs, but Indian openers were to bat a handful of covers from the relentless pace trio of Australia in the phase of the day, where they had nothing to gain, but all to lose. Gill was on debut, and he could see the challenges he had before him on the very first day of his batting and how different the situation was than the other situation he might has faced playing for India A and Punjab in the Ranji Trophy. He also saw Starc delivering a fiery over where he made his partner Agarwal look like an amateur who could pick neither the line of the ball, and neither the movement in the air and off the pitch. He saw his partner getting into a tangle and exposed against Starc and may well have visualised the baptism of fire that was about to begin for the Punjabi lad. Cummins did not disappoint him and tested all his skills outside the off stump. He could leave alone the balls which he could see outside the line of his off stump, but Cummins was skilful enough to move the ball away from the line of the off-stump to keep Gill feeling for the ball. Openers need the rub of the green to go their way in order to survive those periods of the game, and he actually got one when Marnus Labuschagne dropped him at the second slip, handing him another life and opening another window where Gill could see his batting blossoming. Gill never looked back at that false shot and when Starc tested his backfoot game on the very next ball, he was up to the task to show that all the hype built around him and his technique was quite justified. Gill grew in confidence and made sure Starc was served a lesson that he is not afraid of backing himself to play according to his strengths, however great the bowling attack he was facing and that he was not carrying any baggage of the dominance he has had on his opening partner Mayank Agarwal and predecessor Prithvi Shaw. When Gill was inducted for the first time in the team, his technique and flow of batting had impressed none other than Virat Kohli, who had famously recalled not having even 10 per cent of the flair at the age of Gill. The statement showed the value Gill was getting in the leadership group of the Indian team, and as stated earlier, it was Gill’s moment of reckoning in the late phase of the first day at the MCG. He was tested severely on the morning of the second day and ultimately was defeated by Cummins, but not in the battle of technical deficiency as that of his predecessor Shaw, but in the game of nerves and patience. On the fourth day of the Test, he was confronted with another similar challenge, as his senior batting partners Agarwal and Pujara were eliminated quickly by Starc and Cummins. Starc employed his tricks on bringing the balls back into Agarwal and finally sucked him into playing a ball he should have left. Gill was watching all of that happen from the other end, and was readying himself to face Starc. Starc tried similar tactics against him, but Gill was right on the top of the ball and the position he was getting just before the release of the ball while shaping up to face Starc emphasized why he is rated so highly by the team management. Ultimately, the second bout of the battle of nerves was won by Gill, and when Hazlewood came into the attack on the historic score of 36, Gill was rich on confidence, and when he dismissed a short ball of Hazlewood in front of the square, it was a shot to announce his arrival on the big state. Gill has successfully managed to achieve the first challenge of getting into the team and showing he belongs to this level, but he would be realistic to know that the real test of both his technique and temperament will begin now. A batsman of his pedigree always has to deal with the disadvantage of being too good to be ignored. He will be under perpetual scrutiny of two types throughout his career. One, of intensive scrutiny by opposition teams when in a rich vein of form, and another of worrying scrutiny while struggling from lack of form. He would do well to look at the career of someone like his captain in the 2018 U-19 World Cup—Prithvi Shaw whom he has replaced in the team and Mayank Agarwal who is on the cusp of exclusion even after becoming the leading run-scorer of Indian in the last two Test series. Or else, he can also look at this tour as a series that has defined players in different eras and players such as Virat Kohli, Ishant Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, VVS Laxman, who have brought their A-game against Australia in their backyard and never looked back again. There is no prize for guessing what Gill would be looking forward to achieving from this series, but he will have to make sure to be relentless with his technique and mental ability just like Starc and Cummins were when he stepped on to the MCG pitch with the bat in hand.

AUS vs IND: Team India bounce back after Adelaide debacle and Twitter is loving it

The Indian team made a resounding come back in the Border Gavaskar Trophy and won the second Test at the MCG by eighth wickets to level the series. There were huge rounds of appreciation of the team for turning things around when all looked gloomy in Adelaide. India had many challenges to conquer and they started on a positive note, picking five specialist bowlers, although the absence of Virat Kohli had made the batting line up a lot thinner than it actually turned out to be in the second Test. Fans and cricket experts heaped praises on the Indian team and their mental fortitude they saw after the debacle in Adelaide. Some of them rate the win at the MCG as one of the best India have achieved down under while others did not forget to point out the resilience of the system in Indian cricket under the leadership of Kohli behind the series-levelling win at the MCG.

India bury the ghosts of Adelaide to go 1-1

India averted a top-order flutter to gun down 70 and clinch the Boxing Day Test after Australia were bundled out for 200 with a lead of 69 at Lunch on the fourth day.