Australia's seven wicket session in the draw that wasn't

The eyes of millions are on a part-timer forcing down slow bouncers. 

Australia are the World Test Championship holder and has the ODI World Cup. India have been the dominant force in bilateral cricket, is practically unbeatable at home, and owns the T20 World Cup. They are also the financial and political muscle of the game, while Australia can still drop a casual 350,000 people on a Test match. 

These are your big dogs of world cricket. The players are the biggest names around as well. Virat Kohli sells newspapers, Pat Cummins is attacked for being woke, and Sam Konstas got 200K Instagram followers for 90 minutes of work. 

This is as big as Test cricket gets right now. Crowds, viewers, socials, you name it, this is absolutely massive. 

And yet, twice in this series we’ve had Marnus Labuschagne bowling bouncers. Not because the game is gone, but as an actual enforcer with a short-pitch barrage of assorted powder puffs.  

The biggest series in Tests, watched by hundreds of millions of people, and of all players, we’ve had Marnus Labuschagne bouncing batters. 

Three wickets down, way too many to chase, the number three bowling short stuff—this game was drawn at tea. But this series refused to be normal. 

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Before India even arrived in Australia many fans decided this was over. If you can’t even beat New Zealand at home, how you gonna rumble Australia? Throw in Sunil Gavaskar’s 1980s belief that players shouldn’t have paternity leave, and Mohammed Shami’s injury, and this was a tough sell. 

If people were worried beforehand, well, India failing with the bat in the first innings was it. This battle of the titans was over after one innings, we had four and a half Tests of Australia to dominate in a boring fashion. That take did not survive the afternoon. 

Australia had some flaws, and Jasprit Bumrah found each and every one of them. Then India’s whizzkid Jaiswal made a bunch of runs. 

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Jaiswal was the one not handling Australia. Rohit Sharma who has been at home, at six, and opening this series, actually looked fine. Jaiswal couldn’t lay bat on them, Rohit could. But unfortunately for Rohit, that included the ball he went for a big drive and got his edge to carry. That was bad for India after what was a lot of not being dismissed off the new ball. 

Then KL Rahul came out to bat and got a ball that moved back in, and he still edged it. Jaiswal continued to play and miss at the other end. 

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In Perth, Australia, completely lost the plot; they were embarrassing, and no one could remember when they’d been slapped like this before. And of course, Marnus was bowling. 

Virat Kohli was back, Steve Smith was finished. India had not won a single Test at home to the Kiwis, but had now strolled into Western Australia and smashed the Aussies in their big, fat mouths. 

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Virat Kohli was cheered and booed when he came out on the MCG. The noises went along patriotic lines, but even so, it sounded about right. He is either the hero you would die for, or the one that played long enough to be a villain. 

Early in his innings he moved well, the savage sideways movement had eased. He looked more set than Jaiswal, and then Mitch Starc bowled a wide one. A succulent Chinese meal of a delivery. How could any compulsive cover driver resist?  Most players would flay it through the offside and then fist pump their partner. Virat edged it. India were 33/3, all the good early work was flushed, and so were they. 

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The weird thing was that India’s team could get better for the second Test, and Australia’s actually got worse. But the next match was a day-night one in Adelaide. It turns out that although Australia were ended in the previous Test, that was only red ball form. 

Mitchell Starc and Travis Head completely dominated the way they often do. And Mohammad Siraj became a villain. The story was now that India were frauds who got lucky with a flukey 295 first Test win. 

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The one odd thing about this Melbourne wicket was how much it changed from new ball to old. Wickets often get easier to bat on, but this one went from a spicy meatball to an American cheese single wrapped in plastic. It was as if someone were dropping in another wicket midway through each innings.

All India had to do was survive the first 35 overs, but they didn’t. In the middle session, that did not seem to matter at all. Starc would bowl and then rub himself. Boland delivered good deliveries but couldn’t break through. Cummins and Lyon were not difficult to play. And India’s two attacking players kept their heads screwed on. 

Australia went an entire session without a wicket, and that is why Marnus ended up bowling. 

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The only thing stopping Australia from bringing back the Gabbatoir was biblical rains. Well, that and Josh Hazlewood’s fitness. He missed the second Test with a side strain, got fit, came back, and picked up a calf strain. At the Gabba that meant the Aussies were a bowler down, while also running out of time. But also, it meant that Australia had lost their best bowler to left-handers. 

But who cares? Australia were still awesome, and so was Travis Head. 

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Travis Head has a thick torso of a player from another era. He is athletic, but not in a modern cricket athlete kind of way. You throw in the moustache and unkempt hair, and it no longer feels like you are watching a modern player at all. 

That is before you get to his bowling. He is slow and loopy, like a part-timer in a club match. It is barely more threatening than a toddler with a toy lightsaber.

But he is an offspinner, so he could at least bowl a little to the lefties; India had two out in the middle. Not that it mattered much, Australia had little chance of winning at that stage. Starc was looking stiffer than a board, and it felt like part of the reason Head was bowling was for potential overrate penalties. 

Five to ten more overs of Rishabh Pant and Yashasvi Jaiswal would have meant India were more likely to win the game than Australia. Chances are the Aussies would have started to play for the draw then too. However, Head dropped a half-tracker, Rishabh tried to pull it into Yarra Park, and forgot how big the square boundaries of the MCG were. Australia had an end open. 

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Jasprit Bumrah took all the wickets at the Gabba, and it still didn’t matter. His bowling average at this point was negative. Australia were completely on top, and they could risk it all on the last day with declaration batting. That ended up in another Jasprit Bumrah-inspired mini comeback. 

It meant that the momentum hawks thought India had it.