Raising the bat for the long game

Test cricket is alive and well, and in Australia’s hands. That’s the message from the tightly fought series between Australia and India that concluded in Sydney on Sunday and had everything. By winning the five-Test series, Australia now holds every bilateral series trophy on the cricketing calendar. This includes the Ashes, the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, World Cup and World Test Championship.

The Pat Cummins squad has qualified for the finals of this year’s World Test Championships to be played against South Africa at Lord’s in June and will be set to again give it to the English for the Ashes on home soil next summer.

Packed stadiums showed that Australian cricket fans will turn out for a thrilling Test series. This one was enlivened by the emergence of teenage debutant Sam Konstas, who gave cricket fans something to celebrate – that a new generation was ready to take the long form of the game. But it was the outstanding performance of self-deprecating Scott Boland that gives perspective to why Test cricket is different to shorter formats of the game.

The unfinished business from the Sydney Test was Steve Smith’s agonising quest to further cement his place among the greats of the game with 10,000 runs – one run short. Smith’s patriotic duty is to bat on.