Woody Allen once said that he would wish to live his next life backwards – starting out dead and finishing off as an orgasm with everything else in between. This inspires me to ponder as to what would have happened if the recently concluded India-Australia Test series had been played out backwards.
The series would have begun with an unconcerned India already having conceded the series 4-0 to Australia. A proud Australian team would pose with the Border-Gavaskar trophy – for a matter of minutes before it is snatched back from them and they are told that they would have to get down to bowl on a fifth day pitch at the Adelaide Oval.
Umesh Yadav and Ravichandran Ashwin would come out to open for India while Nathan Lyon would take the old new ball at his home ground. He would dismiss Yadav off the first ball only for the batsman to stay back obstinately at the crease thus overruling the umpire’s decision. After a solo single obtained after facing eleven scratchy balls, Yadav would decide that he has had enough and would walk off paving the way for Zaheer Khan’s entry. This trend would continue throughout the series with all batsmen being dismissed off the first ball of their innings and walking off when they are not required to – a classic case for psychologists to examine the dichotomous ethics prevalent in sport.
When Gambhir decides to walk off finally, India have totaled a score of 201. Australia come out to bat and decide 167 is enough for now – they can make up the deficit of 34 later in the match. India score 272 in the second innings which technically means that the Aussies need 307 to win the match. They do that and add 297 runs more for good measure – but that isn’t enough to stop the Indians from reducing the bottom line to 3-0. Who says Test cricket is boring and predictable?
Australia try their best throughout the series but are unable to stop the Indian juggernaut. In Perth and Sydney, the Indians show the Aussies the arm twisting tactics learnt through years of playing gully cricket and fraternizing with the BCCI – they simply refuse to score enough to let Australia bat a second time and declare the matches over in four and three days respectively. This gives them enough leeway to ensure a 1-0 score line before reaching Brisbane.
In Brisbane, India’s three pronged tail of Sachin, Dravid and Sehwag wags in the second innings but Australia still go on to take a final lead of 122 runs. Undaunted, the Indian team declares the series as having been drawn 0-0 and takes the first flight back to the (less) greener ODI pastures at home against the West Indies without Gayle (read: with the wind blown out of their sails).
But, as Nietzsche would have said if he had wanted to, nothing is completely romantic about romanticism. We would still have been waiting for “Jinx Me Not” – the 100th.
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