Australia v India: Posterity wins ‘a great day of Test cricket’

Rishabh Pant of India celebrates victory after day five of the 4th Test Match in the series between Australia and India at The Gabba. Picture: Getty

Sixty years ago at the Gabba, there was a famous conversation at tea time between Australia’s captain Richie Benaud and his chairman of selectors Sir Donald Bradman.

A Test match with the West Indies was going to the wire. There was a case for Australia’s tail seeking a stalemate.

Bradman asked Benaud: was he going for a draw or a win? Said Benaud: a win, of course. Said Bradman: I’m glad to hear it. The result, as every cricket fan knows, was the first Tied Test, and a renaissance in Test cricket – then, as ever, felt to be in its winding sheet.

Some day, I dare say, we’ll learn the content of off-field conversations on Tuesday in the respective camps during the fourth Test in Brisbane — they may improve in the retelling. The outcome was a revelation: Australia pressed for victory because they had to, India because they wanted to, and the result was a fitting climax to one of the most extraordinary series of all time, which ended with the visitors retaining the Border-­Gavaskar Trophy by two Tests to one.

At lunch, the widely used WinViz app rated India’s chance of victory at 1 per cent: 1 per cent in a two-horse race! But the reasons weren’t far to seek. Australia had not lost at the Gabba since the nation’s Bicentennial Year. India were chasing 328 when the biggest successful fourth-innings chase at the ground was 236.

The visitors, who at full strength in Adelaide had been bowled out for 36, seemed to have more players unavailable than available. They had been accused of shying from Brisbane. They had been derided on the basis of a loosely sourced story that had them complaining about making their own beds. They faced an attack widely regarded as the world’s best on a fifth-day pitch that had started dry and ended up looking like a creek bed in a drought.

Australia leave the field after losing on day five of the fourth Test. Picture: Getty

But they had battled through the first session, losing one wicket. Then they battled through the second session, losing two. Their cricket was a combination of old-fashioned defiance from their long-distance number three, Cheteshwar Pujara, new-age impulse from 21-year-old opener Shubman Gill and 23-year-old keeper-batsman Rishabh Pant, and calm-browed leadership from their skipper, Ajinyka Rahane.

Even at tea, when they were three for 183, needing almost four runs an over from the 37 remaining overs, their victory chances were rated at just 16 per cent.

The imminent second new ball posed a grave threat to their frail tail. They did, indeed, lose four further wickets, but Pant’s ebullient 89 not out saw off even Pat Cummins, who appreciatively described it afterwards as “a great day of Test cricket” — which it will forever remain.