Indian cricket was looking up. The 21st century was young—just over a year old. The Australians were visiting India for the Border Gavaskar series and it was to be a real test for the Indians.
Steve Waugh, an Aussie with a stoic demeanor and a gladiator at heart, had built a seemingly unbeatable team. They landed in India on the back of 15 consecutive test-match wins. They had not lost a Test match since October 1999. It was unlikely that India would halt the juggernaut. The Aussies had in their ranks the likes of Glenn McGrath, Jason Gillespie, Matthew Hayden, Adam Gilchrist , the Waugh brothers – Mark and Steve and, of course, the ultimate box of tricks, Shane Warne.
All was well with the cricket world. True to form, the Aussies walloped India by 10 wickets at Wankhede. Warne had eight wickets in the match, and Adam Gilchrist and Matthew Hayden helped themselves to centuries. The Indian line-up, strong on paper with Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, and VVS Laxman, failed to turn up and surrendered meekly.
The Eden Garden spectacle begins
The Australian army now had 16 wins in a row and marched to the Eden Gardens. A feeling of impending deja vu prevailed as the test got underway in the warm but humid air of Kolkata.
Steve Waugh won the toss and chose to bat. It was a familiar pattern for Waugh. Win the toss, bat first, score a ton of runs, and let his devilish pack of bowlers loose. Simple and effective, it was. As the match started off, the thousands who had gathered cheered, blissfully unaware of the rollercoaster ride they were to be put through in the next few days.
Australia began briskly and was soon 193 for 1, with Hayden on 97. It looked like the same old script, but a different plot was to unfold soon. Harbhajan Singh started it all. Hayden picked up a floater from near his feet and hoisted it up in air and right down the throat of substitute Hemang Badani. Soon, Mark Waugh and Justin Langer were dismissed, and the scoreboard read 252 for 4. In what transpired to be a career-defining moment, Harbhajan Singh put on the first of the brakes in the Australian march.
He became the first Indian to claim a Test hat-trick, as an unfamiliar Australian collapse emerged. In a matter of a few overs, it was 269 for 8. Steve Waugh was still around and wasn’t one to give up. In the company of the tail, he took his team to 445. Waugh was the last man out for a brilliant fighting 110. Harbhajan had seven, but the Aussies had managed to stay on top.
India’s reply to the total was also familiar. The steady McGrath took 4 and Warne 2 as India folded in an abysmal fashion again, closing at 171. VVS Laxman, the lone man to make a decent 59. The total they managed meant that they had to follow on.
The second time around, it wasn’t a poor start. Sadagopan Ramesh, the stylish southpaw, and Shivsunder Das added 52 for the first wicket. The Aussies chipped away. Ramesh, Das, Tendulkar, and captain Sourav Ganguly were back in the hut with India on 232-4, still 42 in the red. The ever-dependable Rahul Dravid walked in to join VVS Laxman, who was looking at ease at the crease.
It wasn’t looking good for India or for Indian cricket. McGrath was steady as usual, and Gillespie kept his length up, looking for a driving edge. Shane Warne was just warming up. That slow and deliberate, ominous walk on his run-up was now culminating in tossed-up deliveries floating into the pads.
Laxman looked comfortable at the crease and was already in his 90’s when Dravid joined him. VVS, who had scored a brisk half century in the morning session in the disastrous Indian first innings, seemed to carry on untroubled. He drove crisply when the deliveries were up to him and rocked back and pulled when the ball was pitched short. He duly completed his century, and India went into the third day just ahead.
Indian Cricket’s golden day
The early morning sun was bright and smart as India resumed on Day 4. There was very little hope among the best of the fans. avoiding an innings defeat seemed to be an achievement they would take anytime.
No one had an inkling of what was to happen that day. Two of India’s elite batsmen proved why they were rated as they were. In a manner nothing short of epic, Laxman and Dravid put together a partnership the likes of which are difficult to find.
The Australian attack, one of the best they have ever had, was never short of trying, but then it just wasn’t their day. To the eagle-eyed, a few of Laxman’s shots from day 3 should have given an indication of what was to come.
Late in the second session on Day 3, Kasprowicz was driven on the up with absolute authority. In the very next over Laxman went one better. Warne bowled from round the wicket and floated one up. It was heading towards the good-length spot, whirring in the air and dipping at the same time. Laxman danced down the track and reached a spot a few yards away from the crease and outside leg stump. In an almost surreal manner, the bat came down and the wrists uncorked viciously against the spin, sending the ball past a diving mid on. An on-drive as gorgeous as any, and one played against the spin to the best leg spinner the world had seen.
It was , if not anything else, a glimpse of the things to come.
The fast bowlers were driven when in the channel outside off and flicked with disdain when they went down the leg. It was just death by a thousand cuts. A thousand precise and graceful cuts. Never before had Warne been driven against the spin so mercilessly and regularly as on that fateful day. While Rahul Dravid was plugging away at one end, it was Laxman who took the fight out of the Aussies. He was a possessed soul on that day, one in sublime form and incapable of erring. The two batted the whole day, and had taken India from 254 to 589 and as they walked away unbeaten at the end of play, India had a lead of more than 300, and a cricket-crazy nation was back to dreaming meaningfully.
Laxman was dismissed for 281, and India was then at 608. He had possibly played one of the best test innings ever played. In the face of imminent defeat, down and with very little to hold on to, he had defied a great bowling attack for almost two days. It was a counterattack like very few have seen before; there was no gore or blood. It was a graceful, sublime display of unbridled batsmanship. The drives were pure joy to watch, the pull shots dismissive, and the on-drives were just heavenly. Dravid always the epitome of grace had 180 to his name. Together the two gentlemen of Indian cricket had put on 376 , arguably the finest partnership in India cricket history.
With three-quarters of the final day remaining, India declared victory, and the Aussies were asked to chase 383 to extend their streak. The Laxman-Dravid show had perked up their team, and they seemed to smell blood. Ganguly, ever the one to go for the jugular, pushed his team. Hayden continued his good form; the others looked comfortable, and after about 45 overs, it looked to be heading for a draw.
But then, it was not to be a test match of the ordinary; it still had a tale to tell.
The final lap to glory : An unlikely bowling hero
At 166 for 3, Steve Waugh went back to a tossed-up off break from Harbhajan and could not keep it down. Ponting was to follow without scoring. Then as if on cue , the unlikeliest of bowlers emerged. Sachin Tendulkar with his lazy , loopy leg spin trapped Gilchrist in front of his wickets. Gilchrist was gone for a golden duck, his second of the match. Gilchrist, till that test had a career of 16 Test matches, each one of which ended in a win. He was to taste his first test defeat and gather a golden pair to boot at Eden Gardens. Sachin , with two more wickets hastened the fall and the crowds went crazy as they celebrated a famous victory.
The Eden Gardens had just played host to a match that had all the elements of a blockbuster. A match that changed the way a nation plays cricket and also is still its most famous victory.
In any sport, the human inclination to root for the underdog has an emotion of its own. A derived feeling is the one, when players or teams get themselves out of impossible and lost situations to emerge as winners.
Having travelled across the world triumphantly, the Australian world-beating march was stopped in the moisture laden, warm air of Kolkata.
It had run into two soft-spoken, nice blokes , who spilt their guts on the pitch and refused to give up.
Test cricket was alive and kicking and in its finest livery on that day.
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