The Rahane dynamic that toppled a fortress

The photo that sums up the team dynamic that led India to one of the greatest triumphs in Test history Picture: AFP

At first glance, this photograph of India’s cricket squad in the aftermath of their stunning victory at the Gabba on Tuesday is like myriad of others, lots of big smiles and pumped fists, to be filed under “Winning team celebrates as winning teams tend to”.

When summing up India’s success in retaining the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, however, the picture is worth at least the 1000 words I’ll write about it here, partly because I can think of few teams come to these shores who have depended so much on one another as Ajinkya Rahane’s happy band.

The ONLY place to watch every match of the 2020/21 KFC BBL Season Live & Ad-Break Free During Play is on Fox Cricket, available on Kayo. New to Kayo? Get your free trial now & start streaming instantly >

For a start, look at how many of them there are, players, coaches and officials. It had to be that way, because of the business of introducing new names to the biosecure enclosure.

As we know, India had to call on a score of cricketers in the four Tests as their ranks were raked by injury, and in Virat Kohli’s case imminent paternity.

When only 11 can play at any one time, and there are no tour games between times, that is an awful lot of players to keep fully involved.

The footballer Rodney Marsh once said that a manager only had to keep 11 players happy: the members of the second XI; the first XI are happy because they are in the firsts.

Yet you would not know here who had played what, when and with what success. For example, there is nothing sheepish about the celebrations of Prithvi Shaw and Kuldeep Yadav, who wear whites despite having barely played on tour at all.

Perhaps the injuries kept everyone on their mettle, even the supernumeraries, for there was a sense one might play at any time.

Perhaps, too, that turnover did not work entirely to India’s disadvantage. While the team changes were mostly compulsory, they introduced fresh faces, fresh legs and fresh challenges to an intense contest against an Australian team who favour planning, discipline and repetition.

What else? The formal team photograph is a hierarchical genre: senior players sitting, juniors standing, maybe tall guys in the centre up the back. The groupings we form for ourselves are inherently more suggestive.

This image, then, accents the youth and comparative inexperience of Rahane’s team by placing the youngest players at its centre. The four players closest to the Border-Gavaskar Trophy are among its most junior members: none of Mohammad Siraj, Rishabh Pant, Navdeep Saini or Mayank Agarwal played all four Tests; the three senior pros, Rohit Sharma, Cheteshwar Pujara and Ravi Ashwin are peering over the back.

The coaching staff look just as happy as the players but by composing on the flanks defer to them nonetheless. Head coach Ravi Shastri has never been so inconspicuous.

The captain? Were you not familiar with his face, you would not necessarily pick Rahane as leader, except maybe by the faded shade of his cap. He’s off to one side, kneeling, an elbow companionably propped on Siraj’s knee. His smile lacks the wattage of his colleagues; his hands are not clenched; he radiates in triumph the same moderation he showed on the field.

For fun, I rummaged in pic libraries for comparable images of Indian celebration after the Sydney Test two years ago. It may not surprise you to hear that Kohli, for whom the tour was a kind of personal crusade, featured at the centre of almost all of them, caressing the trophy with a proprietorial air.

Rahane does not feel the same need to be centre of attention, although he was quite capable of leading by example. He scored the only Indian century of the series; his cameo of 24 off 22 balls on Tuesday was crucial in demonstrating Indian intent.

Nor did Rahane sense any obligation to out-Aussie the Aussies. One weird expression of Australian amour propre is the affectation of conferring unofficial Australian-ness on successful visitors.

At the top of this tour, for example, Greg Chappell judged Kohli “the most Australian non-Australian cricketer of all time”, which was meant to be an approbation, but just sounded condescending. So good he’s almost an Aussie, eh? Oh, pass me the sick bag….

Rahane calls for no such absurdities. He could hail from no other country, and he led India exactly as anyone would have expected who knew anything of him: bravely but calmly, adventurously but humbly.

You can imagine his quiet team talks causing everyone to lean in so as not to miss a word. You can imagine his insistence on dignity and decorum in victory and defeat alike. On Tuesday night, rather than bask in his team’s success, Rahane first invited Nathan Lyon to the microphone to present him with a shirt signed by the Indian team on the occasion of the Australian’s 100th Test. Lyon applauded, as well he might.

Perhaps this also derives from a feeling of having Australia’s measure in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Two years ago when Indian won for the first time down under, it was regarded as a great and sudden shift in the countries’ cricket relations.

In fact, the change has been far more gradual, and over the course of two decades. Commencing with that phenomenal turnabout match in Kolkata in March 2001, India have won 19 Tests to Australia’s 14 – a minus record of the kind decidedly rare in our annals.

They have fans here now to cancel out the Australian noise advantage. They’re wise to our tricks: the manufactured on-field confrontations, the tired off-field bullshit (they broke the quarantine, they’re afraid of Brisbane, they won’t make their own beds etc). And day-in, day-out, chasteningly, they are better than we are. So if the members of this team look confident, who can blame them?