Australia on decline ?

India crushed Australia by 320 runs in Mohali to win the second test and take a 1-0 lead in the series. India is the only team to have consistently competed with Australia in last 10 years. Be it Kolkata 2001, Adelaide 2004 or Perth 2008, India did have the measure of Australia in some important games. Still this victory in Mohali is unprecedented in many ways and may be a reflection of what we see in future. The era of Australian dominance over the world, may finally be coming to an end.

A surprising thing in the defeat was the way Australia played. Winning and losing are part of the game and even the best of sides can have an off day, but the way you play determines what percentage of matches you win. I remember the second test at Edgbaston in 2005 Ashes series, where Australia was set a target of 293. They resumed the final day, with an almost hopeless situation at 175-8, but played aggressively, fought till the end and eventually lost only by 2 runs. Though Australia lost the test and series, they played like a champion team and lost like one (and mauled England 5-0 in the next Ashes series).
But in the Mohali test, Australia was defensive from the outset and lacked the aggression and fighting spirit that made them the no. 1 team in the world. After India piled up 469 runs in the first innings, the Australian team of yesteryears would have counter attacked and taken on the Indian bowling, instead this Australian team crawled to 269 from 101.4 overs at a run rate of 2.6! Also while chasing 515 runs in the fourth innings they over-attacked and were reduced to 58-5. Though this may seem to be aggressive cricket, in reality it was a desperate move by a team lacking in confidence. It was as if they accepted the defeat even before the innings started. Successful Australian teams in past scored over 4 runs an over by just playing their natural game, not by trying to hit every ball out of the ground.

India scored 314 runs in their second innings at a run rate of almost 5 runs per over losing only 3 wickets. I can hardly remember any other innings where Australian bowlers were treated with such disrespect. None of the three fast bowlers or the spinners looked like taking a wicket. The most striking thing was the inability of the fast bowlers to reverse swing the ball, whereas the Indians did it at will. It was hard to believe that it was the same pitch where Australia was bundled out for 269. In past Australian bowlers did have days when batsmen had the better of exchanges, none less than the famous Kolkata test in 2001, where VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid denied them a wicket for the whole day. But usually this was because of some exemplary cricket by the batting team. In Mohali, Indian batsmen played good cricket, but not good enough to justify Australia leaking 314 runs at a rate of 5 runs an over. The decline in their bowling prowess just shows how important Glen McGrath and Shane Warne were to Australia.

The Mohali test may just not be a defeat for Australia, but a beginning to the end of their dominance of world cricket. Cricket, like any other sport, is played as much in the mind as in the field. You can bounce back after a defeat in the field, but if you lose mentally it requires a big effort to come back. Unfortunately, Australia seems to be losing the mental game. One of the great sights in test cricket was aggressive Australian batsmen scoring fast runs and making a mockery of world class bowlers; which may not happen anymore now. On the other hand, the rest of the teams will no longer fear Australia as they used to. The good part is that games will be more competitive and we will no longer see any 16 match winning streaks, but the sad part is this happened due to lowering of the bar by Australia rather than others raising it.