Eye on India: Australia’s intensity has Virat Kohli and Co on the ropes

For this week's column, Dileep Premachandran focuses on the ongoing Test series between India and Australia.

Nathan Lyon, centre, has taken more Indian wickets than any Australian bowler in history. Manjunath Kiran / AFP

Cricket can be a funny old game. In their three previous innings before the four-match series against Australia, India had made 631, 759 for 7 and 687 for 6. Australia had lost their last nine Tests in Asia, and not won in India since October 2004.

Three innings into the series, India have aggregated 401 runs. Virat Kohli, the captain who led them with such verve during a 19-match unbeaten run and who tallied 655 in the five Tests against England, has scores of 0, 13 and 12.

On a Chinnaswamy Stadium pitch that had a fair few cracks but was far from being a minefield, India were skittled for 189 in 71.2 overs, with Nathan Lyon taking eight for 50, the best figures ever for a visiting bowler in India.

No Australian bowler has taken as many Indian wickets as the often-derided off-spinner, who was on the verge of losing his place during the recent home series against Pakistan. Lyon now has 58, in front of illustrious names like Brett Lee (53), Richie Benaud (52), Glenn McGrath (51) and Mitchell Johnson (50).

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More importantly, he has put Australia in an outstanding position to retain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

It was his first spell that left India in complete disarray. After Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara had been India’s most prolific batsman in this long home season, but two minutes before lunch, after he and KL Rahul had painstakingly added 61 for the second wicket, he was neither forward nor back to a Lyon delivery that turned and bounced. Peter Handscomb snaffled the bat-pad chance.

But the biggest blow came soon after the interval. Kohli — ‘the head of the snake,’ as Lyon said, echoing Dale Steyn’s words — utterly misjudged the length of an innocuous off break, perhaps thinking of a delivery earlier in the same over that had jumped up disconcertingly.

Offering no stroke and rapped on the pad in front of the stumps, Kohli then compounded his error by asking for and wasting a review.

Ajinkya Rahane, with just one significant score in his last five Tests, then looked to give Lyon the charge and was stumped by a long way despite Matthew Wade failing to gather the ball cleanly at the first time of asking.

Rahul, who was ninth out for a 205-ball 90, spoke afterwards of Lyon taking advantage of the rough created by Mitchell Starc, Australia’s left-arm spearhead, but there was more to this batting debacle than accurate Australian bowling.

On the eve of the game, Kohli had spoken of showing more “intent”, but India never managed to harness it in judicious fashion. A 26-run cameo from Karun Nair best illustrated that. Restored to the side after missing two games following his triple-century against England, Karun batted with tremendous poise before telegraphing a sashay down the crease to Steve O’Keefe, Australia’s Pune destroyer.

O’Keefe darted it wide of off stump, past Karun’s tentative poke, and Wade did the rest. That left India at 156 for five, and Lyon claimed all five to fall after the tea break. India’s lower order, so impressive against England, were no match for his variations.

Four days into a series that they were expected to dominate, India have been flummoxed by the intensity with which Australia have come at them. Central to that has been the bowling. England’s spinners bowled well in patches, but never managed to tie the batsmen down. There would invariably be a hit-me ball every over to release the pressure.

Here, O’Keefe conceded nine in his first seven-over spell. Lyon’s marathon first stint, either side of lunch, yielded three for 40 in 16 overs. Between them, they conceded just five fours in 43.2 overs. Visiting teams often speak of ‘bowling dry’ as a recipe for success in India. Few manage to execute. Australia have, and the side ranked No 1 in the world have yet to find an answer.

HIL leads hockey’s revival in India

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Sajjad Hussain / AFP

It’s impossible to overstate just what a mess Indian hockey was in a few years ago. Run into the ground by administrators who put their egos before progress, the team didn’t even qualify for the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Four years later in London, they finished 12th and last.

Now, there are a few rays of sunshine. Eighth place at the Olympics in Rio last summer may have been a disappointment, especially after the silver at the Champions Trophy that preceded it, but there’s little doubt that hockey has once again caught the Indian sports fans’ imagination.

A big reason for that has been the Hockey India League (HIL), set up on the lines of cricket’s Indian Premier League in 2013. The fifth edition concluded last weekend with the Orissa-based Kalinga Lancers beating Dabang Mumbai 4-1 in the final.

Apart from a host of young Indian talents, the league also showcased players from Australia, Germany, Netherlands, and Belgium — the countries that have dominated world hockey in recent times. More than that, it’s provided a huge fillip for the game in its traditional Indian heartlands.

That was evident when the Under-21s won the Junior World Cup in Lucknow last year. In 2016, the TV viewership for the event was up 40 per cent, and the organisers expect to see a similar rise when the 2017 numbers are confirmed.

There were also packed stadiums in Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Ranchi and Lucknow, as hockey once again sought to establish itself as India’s second sport.

To promote more attractive viewing, field goals were counted as two goals instead of one, which lead to some bizarre scorelines, like the Lancers’ 0-10 home loss to the Uttar Pradesh Wizards. But with Germany’s Moritz Fürste and Australia’s Glenn Turner leading the scoring charts with 12, the Lancers won the games that mattered.

It helped too that the world’s best were on show, something that is changing the hockey paradigm.

“Back when I played, I never got to interact with other team players so much,” said Mark Hager, the Australian great who coached the Lancers. “But now, with the Coal India HIL, players develop a new bond and when they meet at a tournament outside for their national side, they share the same bond and know each other well.”

Fürste, the 32-year-old who has won two Olympic golds and a bronze with Germany, has even spoken of a comeback to the national side next year. If his local teammates can replicate that hunger, Indian hockey can look forward to better days.

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