Devil in their minds: Pre-occupied by pitch talks, Australia’s abject surrender was of their own making

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Ashwin's two and three card tricks and marinating and barbecueing Alex
Carey.


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https://indianexpress.com/article/sports/cricket/border-gavaskar-trophy-
india-vs-australia-pitch-talks-australias-surrender-of-their-own-
making-8439237/

Devil in their minds: Pre-occupied by pitch talks, Australia’s abject
surrender was of their own making

IND vs AUS: The visitors' second innings, and the third day overall, was a
lament on the fabled virtues of indefatigability and tenacity that, in
different eras, made them a touchstone of cricketing success.


What would concern Australia as they pick up their shattered pieces of the
defeat from the ripping dust as they look to bounce back from the series,
more than their elaborate plans, detailed preparations, and how they could
not implement them, would be the utter lack of resolve they demonstrated.
Their second innings, and the third day overall, was a lament on the
fabled virtues of indefatigability and tenacity that, in different eras,
made them a touchstone of cricketing success. This day cannot be brushed
aside as an aberration, or that one bad off day in the office kind, but
one that requires earnest soul-searching if they are to make a comeback
and not end up packing their bags in humiliation.

The moment they lumbered onto the field in the morning, they walked like
no-hopers, as though the match was beyond them. The lines erred, the
lengths faltered, catches slipped out of the hands, runs burst through the
palms, they seemed like a flea market counterfeit of an unsold painting.
There was no energy, belief or even hope, as they let Axar Patel and
Mohammed Shami freewheel in the morning to an unsurpassable total.

The unravelling of their batting could be foretold from their body
language on the field. It took Ravi Ashwin only five balls to trigger a
harrowing evening. A simple but basic two-card trick. He floated a full
ball that he drove emphatically through covers, before the masterful off-
spinner just pulled back the length a fraction, purchased hypnotic inward
drift into his body and coaxed him into step out, stretch forward and
drive away from his body. The ball dropped further than Khawaja had
judged, he was too committed to the stroke to readjust, then it spun away
from him to graze the inside edge of a hideous swipe to Virat Kohli at
first slip. The imprudence of the stroke would haunt him, more than the
execution.

This would be the recurring theme of Australia’s meltdown. There was
neither purpose nor plans, as though disillusioned by the rigorous pre-
series planning. Even the usually organised Marnus Labuschagne could not
work his way out of the mess. Ravindra Jadeja deliberately slowed himself
down—he consumed more time than usual between deliveries, floated rather
than fizzed the ball, pounded the good rather than the full-length zones,
giving Labuschagne a false confidence that he could defend comfortably on
the back-foot. How unusually naive of the Australian batsmen to not second-
guess his intentions. He was baited into defending on the back-foot to a
quicker and flatter ball that barely rose above the shin. He could pin the
blame on the pitch, that it did not bounce, but he could have averted the
dismissal had he played the ball forward.

Soon after, Warner too stooped to a similar folly. Ashwin foxed him with a
three-card trick. Two full floated balls that Warner slapped boundaries,
allaying his doubts against his regular tormentor, later came the under-
cutter that slithered like a freed snake onto his pads. Warner preempted a
half-prod, which in itself is a cardinal mistake in this neck of the woods
and was caught on the pads. To think that this was Warner’s third tour to
India, and yet he looked as clueless as a first-timer, baffles the mind.

This was no group of novices. All the top seven, barring Marnus
Labuschagne and Alex Carey, had played Test cricket here. Of them,
Labuschagne tops the ICC batting charts. Matthew Renshaw had knocked a
brace of 60s in his previous tour to India, but he seemed a man that had
just escaped a train wreck, lasting just seven balls in both innings
combined. Both times he was trapped in front, and both times his leaden-
footed defensive thrust was the culprit. The initial shuffle across forced
him to play around the front pad. Peter Handscomb, one of the heroes of
the Ranchi draw in 2017, aimlessly thrust his front-foot to thwart an
Ashwin slider from around the stumps. A shot that was more a sign of
tactical inflexibility than technical capability.

Alex Carey’s dismissal could be foreseen even before he strode to the
middle. He would sweep and reverse-sweep to glory, some are bound to fetch
him boundaries, but one ball would have his name scribbled on it. For
Ashwin and Co are far craftier than to be spooked by a single shot. It was
just a matter of time before Ashwin marinated him before barbecuing him. A
full, fast ball did the trick. His ploy was suicidal, to say the least, as
one-trick obsession hardly pays. As good a line-dishevelling tactic as the
sweep and its variants are, one string in a bow does not suffice in the
country. Some of the most successful overseas players in Asia have
deployed the sweep to stinging effect, but all of them possessed robust
defensive techniques as well.

To blame the pitch is churlish. In the end, Cummins admitted as much. But
the batsmen couldn’t hide their fear of the pitch. Every time a wicket
fell, they peered suspiciously at the wicket. There were no devils.
Rather, they were bedevilled by the look of the pitch rather than how it
eventually played out. The loose patch outside the left-hander’s off-stump
that Steve Smith feared would crack open never did. The masters of the
mind game were victims of the fears and doubts their own minds infested.
Beneath the snarling, gnarling exteriors brood vulnerability.

Jadeja would later rub salt onto their gaping wounds. “I feel they were
seeing the rough from the moment they sat on the flight. The atmosphere
they created that it would spin; it didn’t spin that much. If we see, they
got out more to straight balls. We also got out lbw on straight balls,” he
told BCCI.tv.

Australia too would need to exorcise the demons of this game and realise
that the demons were not on the surface, but their minds. And from there
they should start their journey of redemption.