The first ever 4-0 whitewash by India

It has been 81 years since India made its debut in International test cricket. Though it had won many tests and series in home and a few away, never India had made it 4-0.

The first evet 4-0 result came against the Aussies, who had never had such a result in 43 years till India made it. There are many contributions that helped team India to achieve this feat.

In the first test Aussies opting to bat first made a daunting 380 in first innings,with a good century by Clarke and a fifty from Henriques. They were on the dominant part till India lost 2 wickets cheaply. And showed some fight later by taking two more. Enter MS Dhoni ,who along with Virat and Bhuvi made India get massive lead of 123.

India then bowled out Australia, and had a mere 50 runs to win. If Henriques had not scored 81 in 2nd innings, the kangaroos might have lost by an innings.

Match 2
Again its the aussies who won the toss and batted first. Bhuvi gave initial burst with 3 scalps and spinners did the rest damage. Clarke declared at 237-9. India lost Sehwag early and Vijay,Pujara added 370 runs for 2nd wicket and took away the game from kangaroos. Then Spinners made aussies collapse for a mere 131 in 2nd innings,losing the match by innings.

3rd match
The day 1 was washed out because of rain. Australia made 408 thanks to couple of 90+ contributions from Smith and Starc. India tried a new opening pair , handing a debut to Shikar Dhawan, who demolished the aussie bowling and became the fastest century maker on debut and went on to score 187 in 174 balls,he lofted very few and played all along the ground for majority of his scoring.. Vijay played defensive and made 150+ followed by his hyderabad knock of 167.

The opening stand was 289 but regular fall of wickets has made indian innings to end at 499, with kohli stranded at 67.

Its Phil huges and starc who saved aussies from an another innings defeat. Its Bhuvi who gave start with 3 wickets. Rest damage did completely by the spin trio of Ashwin,Ohja and Jadeja. The target of 133 was achieved with 15 balls leff in the mandatory overs,with contributions from Vijay,Pujara,Kohli,Sachin,MSD and India produced result in 4 days.

4 th Match
In absence of Clarke,Watto took the captaincy,won the toss,but end result was the same. Aussies got  bowled out for 262, with siddle ending as top scorer. India got good start from opening pair Vijay and Pujara. Then India lost wickets at regular intervals,with late hitting by Dhoni and Jadeja,the innings folded at 272 on day 3 morning.

It was the spinners again reducing the aussies to 94-7. Again siddle saved them with a 50 and giving target of 155 to india with 7 sessions to play.

India started attacking from the word go. Lost Vijay early. Then Pujara,Kohli bought the score to 123. Kohli,Sachin and Rahane got out quickly and the score was 128-4. In came MSD, pujara scored 3 fours and levelled the score. Dhoni hit the winning boundary and a history was made.

India Vs Australia - Border Gavaskar Trophy - Review Part 2

In continuation to my part 1 , here lets see a review of how the Indian batsman fared so far this series.

MS Dhoni

In my view, MSD can be given a perfect 10 in terms of batting this series till now. His attacking 224 of 265 balls in first test completely pulled the game away from the reach of Aussies. Also it had answered many critics that he is not fit for the Test team. From a lean phase in the Indian team's losses from the England series in England, he proved his batting skills with a 99 in last test against England , in the dead rubber draw. In the next innings he played, he showed his magic and his past brilliance with the bat came to the park. His approach was completely Sehwagish. He continued that with a quick fire 44 in 2nd test to take a big lead and pile up pressure on Aussies.

Besides his batting and keeping, his brilliant use of bowlers in last 3 innings was awsome,always creating pressure on the kangaroos. Except the Henriques show with Clarke in 1st innings and with tail enders in 2nd innings, rest all were in India's way so far. He showed defensive approach for a whole session in 2nd test but after that it was completely attacking one. His minimal use of Bhajji in 1st innings at Chennai raised many questions though. But he admitted that Bhajji's performance was brilliant in the 2nd innings and in the second test.

Pujara

The fastest Indian to reach 1000 test runs in terms of innings played(18) and the joint fastest in terms of matches played(11- Sunny is the other one). Pujara showed his brilliance with the bat in Chennai with a meaty 44 but did not capitalize the start, where as in 2nd test, he made a good start, converted it into a big score, besides batting with a injured knee, added 370 runs for 2nd wicket along with Vijay and proved that he is the right choice for a No 3 position in the team. Comparisions of him with Dravid is going on everywhere, but its amatuerish as of now. He has to prove it for a while on long run to be another Dravid or the latest wall of India -Pujara.

Virat
Virat continued his form from the last test against England at home to this series with a century in Chennai( 2nd consecutive in Tests for him and against Australia) and followed that with a cheeky 34 in Hyderabad batting with Tail enders.His apetite for runs cost his wicket, but that was a nice addition to the Indian total where the lead was huge by the time he came to crease. His fielding was awsome as usual. From the lean phase against England in first 3 games, his last 3 tests performance overcame that.

Vijay
Vijay might have failed in his home ground in negotiating Pattinson, but his show in Hyderabad was fantastic. Though he scored runs slowly in the begininning and had a strike rate of 47 for his innings, his association with Pujara for 2nd wicket , for a period of over 6 hours and 110 overs was brilliant by any means. He now became a strong contender for the opening slot and selectors might not think of dropping him atleast for the next 2 tests.

Sachin
The master blaster made a well equipped 81 in the first innings at Chennai , followed by a pinch hitting 13 in the second innings, scoring 2 sixes in the first 2 balls he faced in the innings. Though he failed in the Hyderabad test for a low score, it doesnot matter much currently. And he made another Indian record, for the most waiting time with Pads on for a No 4 batsman in Indian test history. Thanks to Vijay-Pujara Partnership. One more thing to mention is the wait he did while Vijay is coming to pavilion, he waited till Vijay came out of the boundary line just to ensure that the crowd's applause goes to Vijay for his brilliant knock.

Sehwag failed in all the 3 innings he played, all three times to unplayable deliveries from the Aussie bowlers, twice to Pattinson and once to Siddle. He might come back to his Sehwagish knocks anytime.

Apart from the top order batsman, Kumar played a vital role with the bat in Chennai , for a stand worth 140 with Dhoni and made a valiant 38 runs . In Hyderabad, he hit couple of boundaries for 10 runs but he got out looking out for runs, coming down the track. Expecting more from a No 9 batsman is not good though.

Jadeja impressed with the ball but failed with the bat scoring 26 runs in 2 innings he played. But it doesnt matter much as he claimed 11 wickets and proved his bowling skills , more than proving his batting skills. Lets wait and watch how he fares with the bat in next 2 games.

With the performance by Indians , now Dhoni is the captain having most Test wins for India, though his wins away were only 5 and at home are 17 in 45 games totally , against the previous record holder Sourav who had 11 wins abroad and 10 at home in 49 games. Though it matters a little, Dhoni is the record holder now.

Also the win has helped India rise in its ranking to 4th position now, and if it gets 2 more wins, it will be ahead of Aussies and might go ahead of England too, if England plays the way it played against NZ today.

Review by Sukumar R

India Vs Australia - Border Gavaskar Trophy - Review Part 1

With the series loss to England on thier home soil, Indian Team was in a great pressure to show a comeback performance. The reason is big for that, couple of years back, till the Eng-India series in England last year, India has been No1 ranked Test side.

In the last 2 years the test series results for India are

0-4 Vs England in England( 4 Matches)
0-4 Vs Australia in Australia(4 Matches)
1-0  Vs WI in WI(3 Matches)
2-0 Vs WI in India ( 3 Matches)
2-0 Vs NZ in India ( 2 Matches)
1-2 Vs England in India( 4 Matches)
2-0 Vs Australia in India ( 4 Matches, with 2 to play)

So, overall India's performance is shortly summarized as below, away and home.

Away : 1-8 ( 11 Matches) W/L - 0.125
Home : 7-2 ( 11 Matches) W/L - 3.5

Overall : 8-10 ( 22 Matches) W/L - 0.80

For a team which was ranked No 1 before these matches were played, is now ranked 4th and 13 rating points behind 2nd ranked England, 12 behind 3rd ranked Australia. If India wins 4-0 and England loses by any margin or draws its NZ series, India have chances to claim No 2 spot by April 1 cut off date of ICC. Hope they will try for it or atleast swap places with Australia in ranking tables.

Coming to the on going Border Gavaskar trophy, India proved its better side of the two in subcontinent in first 2 games. Hope they will continue the show and win the series against the mighty aussies who are without the services of Ponting and Mike Hussey.

Lets have a short review on the performance by these 2 sides so far in this series.

Ashwin - 18 Wickets (9/10)
Clearly Ashwin is the pick of the bowlers for India, he recovered from his bad show against England and proved he is worth for his spot in the team. This made him achieve his career best ranking and rating as well. He is the lone Indian bowler in top 10 ICC rankings for bowlers. If he continues his show surely he will be a long time player for India.

Jadeja -11 Wickets ( 8/10)
Jadeja, who was criticised by many as a player of shorter format and does not fit into longer version, despite his outstanding domestic allround records, had now got chance only to criticize his batting in the longer version and not his bowling. He played a second fiddle to Ashwin and picked up 11 wickets so far in this series.

Harbhajan - 5 Wickets ( 6/10)
Bhajji has not made much of impact in first innings of first tests by just claiming a wicket, though he bowled better than he did against England in Mumbai. In the second innings he got 2 wickets and supported Ashwin well in tandem to knock down the Aussies. In the second test, he bowled exceptionally well in both the innings though he got 2 wickets in 1st innings and went wicketless in 2nd innings ( 10-6-10-0). He piled up pressure on Aussies in the last 3 innings he bowled for India, and as a result they lost wickets to Ashwin and Jadeja.

Bhuavenesh Kumar & Ishant Sharma

Its not a surprise that Kumar and Ishant did not get much of wickets in this series. Both went wicketless in first game. Kumar rocked the top order in 1st innings of 2nd game claiming 3 and Ishant provided the crucial breakthrough by scalping Watson in 2nd innings . Both these got scalps that turned the game in 2nd innings for India.

The batting review will be posted in next post.

Review by Sukumar R