Cricket: From the Far End

What a rivalry! If we count since the start of 2000 (just after the time when Australia had started their first streak of 16 wins in a row), Australia has lost only 12 matches, 6 of them are against India! If we don’t count the dead rubber games the lost games are 7 (which is an unbelievable record). Of those five are against India (Kolkata, Chennai in 2001, Adelaide in 2003, Perth earlier this year and now in Mohali). The loss at Mumbai in 2004 was after they had already won the series. The two other real losses of Australia were in the Ashes 2005 against England.

In Australia in the same duration, they have lost only 3 games, two of which were lost when the series was still open - both were against India. The third one was the Sydney dead rubber against England in 2003.

Compare this to 14 wins against 4 losses in Ashes for Australia, only two of which were when the series was still open, and it’s easier to decide which contest is the premier one in test cricket in this decade. And for those who still like to bring up the McGrath-Warne factor from time to time, India won the 2001 home series against Australia by beating them in the matches when these two played. England’s wins at Birmingham and Nottingham were when McGrath didn’t play. We won’t count Mumbai (2004), Leeds (2001) and Sydney (2003) in this, the series were already decided by then.

Saurav Ganguly announced today that he will retire after the Australia series. Whether it was a deal with the selectors or not doesn’t matter. It is necessary that the seniors - or all major players - need to get an opportunity to go like this. I think he had proved all he wanted to prove over the last year or so, playing well against South Africa, England, Pakistan and Australia. He was dropped, he felt he had more cricket left in him, he came back and he was successful. Job done, now he could leave whenever he wanted.