Softly does it as Australia gets the last laugh in Border-Gavaskar series
Australia played hard and fair and won the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. India said the hosts were soft: one of the biggest insults in sport. What a pity there’s no sixth Test.
Australia raised the Border-Gavaskar Trophy for the first time in a decade. Winners were ebullient, exhausted grinners after a wild SCG Test. The losers pleased themselves by labelling Pat Cummins’ side “soft” for their support of Sam Konstas. What a pity there’s no sixth Test.
Australia’s six-wicket triumph confirmed the Cummins era a great one.
Every bilateral trophy, from the Ashes to the Border-Gavaskar to the Warne-Muralitharan, plus the World Test Championship and World Cup, are huddled in the trophy cabinet at Cricket Australia’s Jolimont Street HQ.
When Beau Webster, the big lug from the Tasmanian town of Snug, hammered the winning runs shortly before 2.30pm, an enthralling, free-for-all-ing series finished 3-1 in favour of the hosts.
“Unreal,” Cummins said.
The all-conquering skipper had been criticised for missing an Australian one-day international and attending a Coldplay concert in the lead-up to the first Test defeat to India in Perth. His leisurely build-up had been plotted to ensure he would finish the series strongly. Which he did.
In the end, the Coldplay concert seemed a decent idea after all. “This was one trophy that a few of us didn’t have,” Cummins said after Australia posted 4-162 to win the Sydney Test in 2½ days.
“It’s been an amazing series. I’m immensely proud. We’ve spent a lot of time together as a group over the years. We knew we weren’t at our best at Perth, but it was never as bad as it seemed.
“You stick tight and double down on what makes us a really good side.”
India tried hard all summer, fought harder, got down and dirty before going down the gurgler as backroom dramas engulfed their tour. Virat Kohli emptied his pockets during the final day’s play in a swipe referencing the sandpaper scandal that engulfed then captain Steve Smith’s Australians and coach Gautam Gambhir had one final go after stumps.
Taking umbrage at Australia coach Andrew McDonald’s accusation of crude intimidation of the 19-year-old Konstas, who had verbally jousted with India captain Jasprit Bumrah, Gambhir delivered one of sport’s biggest insults.
“It’s a tough sport played by tough men. You can’t be that soft. As simple as it can get,” Gambhir said. “I don’t think there was anything intimidating about it. He had no right to be talking to Jasprit Bumrah when Usman Khawaja was taking time. He had no right. He had no business to be involved with Jasprit Bumrah. That was a job for the umpire.“
Softness in sport is a cutting assessment. Gambhir was reminded of Kohli’s shoulder bump on Konstas that cost the Indian legend 20 per cent of his match fee at the MCG.
“I think whatever has happened is history,” Gambhir said. “Whatever happened, happened. It’s a tough sport played by tough men and these things happen,” he said. “I don’t think we need to make a big issue out of it. It’s not just incidents that have happened in this series. It’s happened in the past as well. A lot of Australian players in the past have done it as well. We keep making a big deal out of these things.“
Australia’s only hardship on Sunday belonged to Smith. All he wanted was a high five. The five runs he needed to reach a career haul of 10,000. The gods left him hanging like they left Don Bradman hanging at The Oval in 1948, four runs shy of a career average of 100. Unbelievably, inconceivably, killing him softly, as though he’d walked under a tradesman’s ladder upon arrival at the SCG, or broken a mirror in the changeroom, or both, while crossing the path of the blackest of cats, Smith was dismissed on 9999.
All was in readiness for Smith’s elevation to Test cricket’s most exclusive batting club. All was in vain. His wife, Dani, was about to be interviewed on TV. His teammates were huddled on the balcony. Australia’s highest runscorer, Ricky Ponting, was on the edge of his seat in the commentary booth, about to put his erudite, scholarly words to the moment. An animated SCG crowd of 38,597 was frothing and bubbling and on the verge of eruption … when the courtroom gasped.
Plot twist. Smith was four not out in his pursuit of five and 10,000. Just a quick single away, a prod or a poke, a nudge or a wink, a little dab would do him. It felt inevitable. Such readiness! Such vain! A delivery from Prasidh Krishna reared off the pitch like Smith’s most unthinkable nightmare, going for his throat. He fended it off but when his outside edge made a clunk, his heart must’ve sunk. India’s YB Jaiswal took a tumbling catch at gully. Dani put her hands to her head and shouted – oh, no! – and the masses went silent for a few seconds – oh, no! – before moaning and groaning like none of us would ever believe in fairytales again Smith looked like he’d seen a ghost and then he walked off like one.
“I can’t talk about it,” Ponting said. “We all thought it was inevitable. It really would have been a fairytale in front of his home crowd. Unfortunately, he fell one short – if you can believe that.”
Cricket’s the funniest of games, except when it loses its humour, and Smith didn’t know whether to laugh or cry following Australia’s commanding six-wicket victory. Teammates kept shaking his hand then consoling him for the single that never came. Cummins reckoned Smith’s biggest aim was for Australia to win the Test. But for the gods to ignore Sydney as the venue for his crowning moment … they can be contemptibly cruel and unsentimental. They can refuse to give us moments we turn up for. They can be unspeakably hard.
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