Australia defeat India to be world’s best Test nation – again

Australia are again the world champions of Test cricket after Pat Cummins’ side capped two excellent years by slaying the second best side, India.

Pat Cummins lifts the ICC World Test Championship Mace after defeating India at The Oval in London, England. Picture: Getty Images

Australia are the world champions of Test cricket.

Pat Cummins’ side capped two excellent years by slaying the second best side in the world, India, in front of a hostile crowd at The Oval on the fifth day of what was a match fit for the occasion.

Two big scalps to Scott Boland and three from Nathan Lyon snuffed any hope the cricket super power had of making amends for losing the corresponding World Test Championship final two years earlier.

Lyon finished with 4-42, Boland 3-46 and Mitchell Starc 2-77 as the Australian attack lived up to its reputation as the best in the world.

Australia won by 209 runs when the first session was extended with the Indians nine down.

There were nerves in the camp when Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane took on the bowlers and reduced the margin to manageable on the fourth evening.

Australian fans will have bad memories of the Indians refusing to die in Sydney and Brisbane, and the scars from England’s impossible victory at Headingley in 2019.

Nathan Lyon celebrates the dismissal of India's Mohammed Siraj to seal victory. Picture: AFP

It was only fitting that the day shifted when Steve Smith dived to his right and hung on to a screaming catch off the edge of Virat Kohli’s bat.

Big stage. Big moment. Big players.

Smith set up the game scoring a century in a first innings partnership of 285 with Travis Head when the side had been in trouble on the first day.

Heads’ counterpunching 163 was, however, the big statement of the match.

Smith and Kohli have had their issues, not least of them when the Indian captain implied his opposite number had been cheating in his use of the DRS review during the heated 2017 series on his turf.

These days, with both in the twilight zone of their careers and neither carrying the captain’s yoke, they have developed a friendly, world-weary familiarity.

Australia were anxious to get him, over anxious in fact. With the batter on 49 they convinced themselves he had nicked one off the bowling of Scott Boland and burned a review.

The mistake will have reminded Cummins’ side of the burnt review in the 2019 Headingley game that, had they retained, would have seen the game go in their favour.

Boland, playing just his eighth Test match, is still something of a cult hero at home. If he bowls in the Ashes like he did in this final ...

The seamer set Kohli up before bowling one into the channel wide of his off stump. Those who have watched him over the years know he is vulnerable to the big drive out there and so it proved, thanks to the fielding brilliance of Smith.

India's Virat Kohli walks back to the pavilion after his dismissal at The Oval. Picture: AFP

Kohli was gone on 49 and is unlikely to get a chance to play another WTC final.

Not satisfied with dethroning the king, Boland removed the next biggest threat two balls later, inducing an edge from the bat of Ravi Jadeja with the all rounder yet to get off the mark.

India were done.

A game jammed between the twin edifices of the IPL and the Ashes found sunlight thanks largely to the presence of King Kohli and the promise of an extraordinary finish.

There is no bigger name in cricket and no man better suited to such an event or task.

If the World Test Championship isn’t the concept that saves Test cricket, it is at least the one that proves there’s a lot of life in the format.

Broadcasters were expecting the biggest audience in the history of the game for the perfectly poised last day of the final – thanks largely to the presence of India and the hope Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane could pull off an improbable victory.