As far as opening statements go, this will be particularly hard to beat. India have won the first Test of the 2023 Border-Gavaskar Trophy by an innings and 132 runs.
So much is at stake in an India-Australia Test series that you feel that the Border-Gavaskar Trophy doesn’t need further context. And yet, what with berths in the final of the World Test Championship at stake, that’s exactly what this four-match showdown between the world’s top two Test nations has acquired.
The India-Australia rivalry, the marquee face-off in modern-day cricket, has been characterised in recent times by occasionally explosive flashpoints, an indication not merely of how determined each side is to grab the upper hand but also of an evening out of the playing field that for the longest of whiles was slanted towards the Aussies.
The emergence of India as a formidable travelling force, as comfortable on less familiar surfaces overseas as on the slower, lower tracks at home, has lent an added edge, and even though players no longer snarl and growl – an offshoot of sharing IPL dressing rooms for eight weeks every year – there is no dip in intensity and intent.
Each series in India, especially, begins with conspiracy theories from various motivated quarters, with questions raised even before a ball is bowled on the kind of pitches that will be laid out. The Australian team decided to play ball this time by opting for a preparatory camp in Bengaluru on a scuffed-up pitch that, they were convinced, would greet them at each of the four venues. When they arrived in Nagpur for the first Test, they were quietly guarded about the nature of the surface, though their supporters were left in no doubt about what pundits sitting back home in Australia thought of a track they hadn’t so much as seen.
Over the years, India have finetuned the art of cutting out what they call the ‘white noise’. It’s impossible that they weren’t aware of the talk about the pitch – we did a good job of reminding them at press conferences – but if they were fussed, they didn’t show their hand. There was a sense of steely purpose to them when they took the field on Thursday, the first day of the Test, after Pat Cummins chose to bat. That, combined with Australia’s unfounded fears, meant India had won the early bragging rights after packing off their opponents for 177.
It was now up to the celebrated batting unit to build on the gains accrued by the bowlers. And one man did so sanguinely, with an innings of subliminal beauty that he himself will be hard-pressed to emulate.
For the longest time, Rohit Sharma remained an enigma of sorts – a behemoth in white-ball formats, a massive underachiever in the five-day game. It seemed unreal, unjust even. How could this magnificent batsman not crack the Test conundrum? What would it take for him to turn the corner?
The answer, when it finally came, was remarkably straightforward – make him open the batting in Tests, much like in one-dayers in 2013, a move that was the first step in his journey towards becoming one of the all-time greats in white-ball internationals.
The promotion to Test opener has gone better than the most invested stakeholder of Indian cricket could have imagined. Since 2019, Rohit has been excellent in Test cricket, averaging upwards of 57 in 19 matches and striking six mellifluous centuries. The latest in that string of masterpieces came at the VCA Stadium on Friday, day two of the first Test.
As his experienced top-order colleagues disappeared with the rapidity of falling autumn leaves, Rohit turned in an absolutely high-quality exhibition of Test match batsmanship. Without sacrificing any of his flair, he presented an unshakeable, immovable challenge. His footwork was of the highest order, as it needed to be on a tricky but not impossible-to-negotiate pitch. His mind appeared remarkably free of clutter, his decision-making therefore smart and decisive. His defence was right out of the coaching manual, hands close to his body, the head steady and still, the bat a mere extension of his lovely hands that caressed and coaxed and cajoled rather than battered and brutalised the ball to and over the boundary ropes.
The shifting of gears was further proof, if it was needed, of how far Rohit has come as a Test batsman. Early in his innings, as a subdued KL Rahul watched on in admiration from the non-striker’s end, Rohit raced to his fifty on the first evening. On the second morning, Rohit held back, particularly after Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli were both victims of impressive debutant off-spinner Todd Murphy. He took it upon himself to anchor the innings, and while that sounds simple enough, it needed the concentration of Zen and the self-denial of a monk, facets that don’t come easy and to many.
That this is Rohit’s first Test in 11 months, and that he has only played high-octane limited-overs internationals in the interim, lent further aura to an already magical innings. Rohit has taken India’s commitment to all-out positivity in 50- and 20-over cricket to heart, setting the tone with muscular cameos in the Powerplay. To go in the exact opposite direction and still pull it off with felicity against an excellent attack in not the most ideal batting conditions is something he ought to be inordinately proud of.
There is something about a captain leading from the front that does wonders for the morale of a side. Just how inspirational Rohit’s ninth Test ton had been was evident in the wonderful eighth-wicket alliance between Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel, who took the mind-over-matter maxim to a whole new level. As Rohit looked on with a cheery grin from the dressing room, seated alongside Rahul Dravid, you couldn’t help but wonder if the head coach had not espied something of himself in the avatar Rohit had chosen to embrace on Friday.
A first Test hundred as captain (admittedly in only his third match in that capacity), a first Test ton against Australia. These are all statistical footnotes that will do little justice to the quality, the significance and the incandescence of Rohit’s 120. And to its value too beyond the numerical, needless to say.
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