Subject: India vs Australia Test Series

@Achmid
So it's currently 1-1 and the 3rd test is nicely placed with both teams in it and the match can go either way. I think the batting track is fairly conducive for a big score and if India doesn't atleast get a lead of 50-100, we could be in trouble unless the rain comes in to save us. After having a demoralizing 1st test defeat, we played brilliantly in the 2nd test to get to 1-1 so that's an additional confidence booster for our team. Tomorrow, Pujara and Rahane have to just put their head down and make Australia sweat for every wicket, that's the way to go about it, I'm fine with even a draw.

@Hoodibaba I don't know if you follow cricket but tagging you as well.
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With the advent of the IPL I felt it was an overdose and totally lost interest in cricket.
I do see the scores though from time to time.

International series/competitions is certainly more interesting for me as well as compared to the IPL.

3 run outs and the slowest fifty by Pujara today. Isn't a really difficult pitch to bat on tbh, we just threw our wickets. Draw/loss looks like the only option for us now.

I won't say what I had written, but basically India need to learn to respect the rules of the game and learn to play in the spirit in which the rules were made, otherwise we end up like America in NASCAR where it's ok the cheat as long as you don't get caught.

India should have gone for the win today, they almost got there and they weren't even taking easy runs.

Gabba test will be washed out, and whilst Indian fans will be like "we retained the Border-Gavaskar trophy", it's not something Aussies really care that much about, as we don't even remember how many times we have won it, what is more important is the 36 we bowled them out for in the first test.

As far as how the Aussies are playing, only a couple of the players in the Aus team deserved to win this match, the rest played like they were playing for their paycheck. Sure it was a day 3 wicket (on day 5) but with 3 dropped catches just by the keeper (and others by others in the field), the Aussies didn't deserve to win, and would have been better if they lost, let them feel the heartbreak they felt in England, which apparently wasn't enough to wake them up from their golden thrones

India won their series in Australia against an Aussie side without Warner and Smith, with many umpiring calls and by picking and choosing what grounds to play on - which destroys any chance of them building a legacy and everyone in cricket is like "yes it's a win but you didn't really do anything special".

This series is almost the opposite. Sure India are still up to those same tricks, but India are also missing a lot of players through injury which kind of balances it out a bit, so if the weather somehow didn't rain in the 4th test (3 of the 5 days are due to be washed out),and went on to beat India, Australians would be like "yeah, you beat a 2nd XI Indian squad, give us something to actually congratulate you on", again, beating 2nd XI teams goes nowhere to building a legacy, or even respect
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I won't say what I had written, but basically India need to learn to respect the rules of the game and learn to play in the spirit in which the rules were made, otherwise we end up like America in NASCAR where it's ok the cheat as long as you don't get caught.


India was playing well within the rules of the game. Can you point out where India cheated?

India should have gone for the win today, they almost got there and they weren't even taking easy runs.

We all know India's lower order is brittle. With Jadeja injured, if either of Vihari/Ashwin would have fell, India would have been knocked out. So going for the draw was the perfect choice. It's not like we didn't go for the win, until Pant was there, the game was firmly in our grasp and we were going for the win.

Gabba test will be washed out, and whilst Indian fans will be like "we retained the Border-Gavaskar trophy", it's not something Aussies really care that much about, as we don't even remember how many times we have won it, what is more important is the 36 we bowled them out for in the first test.

There's no certainty yet that the Gabba test will be washed out. Whatever the result of the series, it will be remembered for the fight shown by India after the 36 in the 1st test and regardless of the slew of injuries to our main players. Also, the last time Australia won a series in India was in 2004-05 and we won a series in Australia in 2018. Going by current form, India is the better team.

As far as how the Aussies are playing, only a couple of the players in the Aus team deserved to win this match, the rest played like they were playing for their paycheck. Sure it was a day 3 wicket (on day 5) but with 3 dropped catches just by the keeper (and others by others in the field), the Aussies didn't deserve to win, and would have been better if they lost, let them feel the heartbreak they felt in England, which apparently wasn't enough to wake them up from their golden thrones

Aussies actually bowled well but Paine had a bad day. Ashwin got close to getting out on a number of occasions but he didn't panic. Lyon almost got Pant twice and then Paine spilled again in the last 10 overs but by then even if he had taken it, it would still have been a draw.
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India won their series in Australia against an Aussie side without Warner and Smith, with many umpiring calls and by picking and choosing what grounds to play on - which destroys any chance of them building a legacy and everyone in cricket is like "yes it's a win but you didn't really do anything special".

I'm hearing about the choosing grounds part for the 1st time but yes we won against an Australian side without Smith and Warner. But it's not like we forced them to sit out, they were serving punishment for cheating. So it's their own mistake. Also, we still had to face Starc, Cummins, Hazelwood, Lyon so the Aussie bowling attack was strong. Also, in this series we have lost so many players to injuries, it's difficult to count but still it's 1-1 after 3 tests in Australia so yes, it's something special. We don't have Kohli, Yadav, Shami, Rahul, I Sharma. Now Jadeja is injured and didn't even come at his preferred position, Ashwin came instead of him. 2 bowlers had to literally make their debut in Australia. Rahane was a stand-in captain who was a bit low on form, even then we held on for this draw.

This series is almost the opposite. Sure India are still up to those same tricks, but India are also missing a lot of players through injury which kind of balances it out a bit, so if the weather somehow didn't rain in the 4th test (3 of the 5 days are due to be washed out),and went on to beat India, Australians would be like "yeah, you beat a 2nd XI Indian squad, give us something to actually congratulate you on", again, beating 2nd XI teams goes nowhere to building a legacy, or even respect

Yes, it was India's 2nd XI team where we were without our main batsman (Kohli) and without our 3 main bowlers (Shami, Sharma, Yadav). And I really don't understand what tricks you are referring to here? Choosing grounds? Even if we choose grounds because of quarantine restrictions, it's still Australia. It's not like we are suddenly moving the series to India.

Coming to Border-Gavaskar trophy, since 1996, we have won 8 Border-Gavaskar trophies as opposed to Australia's 5. So we too have won countless trophies including the last 2 (both 2-1).

I will only respond to the first question because the rest are opinions that really won't be changed one way or the other and comes from being in an echochamber.

"India was playing well within the rules of the game. Can you point out where India cheated?"
Pant obviously was not injured. India used that knock as an excuse to drop their keeper who is known to be worse, and proved it, so they could put the best keeper in their team in the field.
Pant didn't even have an armguard on to protect his "injured" elbow, let alone some sort of strapping. This is against the spirit of the game.

It is just like Jedejas "concussion" which he batted fine with but then introduced Chamal to bowl who got man of the match and is much better bowler (nothing like-for-like between the players).

There are more incidents but I will only say the extremely obvious ones and gauge the response before I go about pointing out more.
These actions above are not within the spirit of the game, and it's the kind of shenanigans that has stopped the runner being allowed in the sport.

As I say, "within the rules" is different to "within the spirit", and within the rules, and bending them is the slope towards what the US has. Which is either it's fine until you get caught cheating, or its more like the NFL where we will need to stop for 5min after every play to make sure every single rule was followed

It should be in the above post, but I didn't want to "edited" at the bottom.

These kind of bending of the rules, are no different to other issues that have gone against the "within the spirit of the game" that have cropped up in the past, but were "within the rules", except for the fact the concussion one was brought in for player safety, so as soon as you start disrespecting that rule, you are putting a lot of people in danger.

Incidents that are similar in nature "bending the rules" include:
Bodyline series
Underarm bowling
Changing bowling arm without informing the batsman/umpire

All of which you can no longer do because it was outside of the spirit of cricket.

Edit: and again above relating to the Chamal - Jedeja was obviously replaced due to the hamstring injury he sustained which would have left India a bowler short, or very inefficient bowl/field.
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The Jadeja/Chahal incident that you are talking about happened during the ODI/T20I series, I don't remember. In this series, Jadeja got hit on the fingers, sat out in the 2nd innings and won't be playing the next test. So it's a completely valid injury. Also, it's usually up to the umpires on whether a player should be allowed to go off the field. If they allow it, that's fair. We are almost left with just 11 players now with so many injuries, Australia shouldn't really be complaining. Even Bumrah is now out of the Gabba test, so if the game goes on, the series is Australia's for the taking.
What I'm trying to say about injuries and substitute fielders is that it's completely subjective. You can't call it cheating.

Unfrotunately there are plenty of these incidents from India both in this series and over the years.
As I also was commenting on the Pant/Saha (this match) and the Jadeja/Chamal (in ODIs). Trust me from someone in the medical field, not a single doctor would say someone was faking a concussion no matter how obvious it is, for risk of being sued, let alone a sports person.
Pants injjury was obviously no more than a bruise, and an excuse to get a better keeper on the field, because not only did he not bat with any protection over his "injury" but he was promoted up the order to bat. This literally never happens to an injured player, if anything they drop down the order.

Siraj calling the Aus fans saying racist things when even the Indian supporters in the location said there was no racist comments. This was used to stop Greens momentum and reduce overs before tea so that if Paine wanted to let Green get his debut century, he would need to bat after tea which is what India wanted.

Trying to say Smith somehow covered deep grooves marking stumps with some shadow batting (anyone who has played cricket on a turf pitch knows these are deep grooves. They are deep in the one-dayers I have played at my low level on turf, let alone after 5 days).

BCCI trying to move the Gabba test, despite signing off on it, purely because they know they have very little chance (not impossible) of winning there, even though Sydney has an active Covid outbreak, but QLD had 1 case, and that the hotel quarantine in QLD is no different to what Sydney were offering.

It honestly goes on and on, some is cheating and some is just not playing in the spirit of the game, or in the spirit of the rules, but this is also why I don't talk to Indian supporters about their cricket team because they refuse to ever accept what India does.

We can go as far back as when Kohli got caught ball tampering, but not only did BCCI deny it, but the only reason he wasn't banned is because it needs to be raised within 365days of the incident, and it was just outside of that.

I've already pointed out where Australia isn't perfect, and I'm happy to accept that, but the same can never be said about Indian cricket supporters. Just look at the Smith/Warner/Bancroft ban. Warner and Bancroft were the only ones to cheat, but Smith was banned because we decided that the captain should also be punished for this happening within the team, despite him being the best batsman in the world. The ICC ban was only a matter of matches, but because Australia has such a high expectation of integrity, it was Cricket Australia who banned the 3 players for 9-12mths, even South Africa, who has had du plussis been caught twice for ball tampering, just took the ICC ban.

India have the reputation for a reason, and they continue to hold it because of questionable decisions such as those I've pointed out. I would love for them to play within the spirit, but it will obviously not happen any time soon, and it's pretty sad to see.

When you don't play within the spirit, when you cherry pick conditions, and when you sub out players by bending rules, playing with 12 players instead of 11, they will never be seen as a great team by anyone outside of India, as there will always be a question mark around it, and the players deserve better than that. So in the end, the only people these management decisions and BCCI decisions hurt are the Indian team.

Unfrotunately there are plenty of these incidents from India both in this series and over the years.
As I also was commenting on the Pant/Saha (this match) and the Jadeja/Chamal (in ODIs). Trust me from someone in the medical field, not a single doctor would say someone was faking a concussion no matter how obvious it is, for risk of being sued, let alone a sports person.
Pants injjury was obviously no more than a bruise, and an excuse to get a better keeper on the field, because not only did he not bat with any protection over his "injury" but he was promoted up the order to bat. This literally never happens to an injured player, if anything they drop down the order.

The blow was real and once you get a hit, it's very difficult to assess the seriousness of it. So Pant going out temporarily for Saha is perfectly fine as we India didn't want to aggravate his injury further considering the fact that his services were more important at that time as a batsman in the 2nd innings. It was more of a precaution.

Siraj calling the Aus fans saying racist things when even the Indian supporters in the location said there was no racist comments. This was used to stop Greens momentum and reduce overs before tea so that if Paine wanted to let Green get his debut century, he would need to bat after tea which is what India wanted.

Mate, no is going to just create this kind of a story out of thin air. Again, it might be tough to find proof but you should really trust the player in this situation. And I really don't think it was anything to do with Green's momentum. But of course, if there's no proof, BCCI should let the matter to rest.

Trying to say Smith somehow covered deep grooves marking stumps with some shadow batting (anyone who has played cricket on a turf pitch knows these are deep grooves. They are deep in the one-dayers I have played at my low level on turf, let alone after 5 days).

I know Smith is a bit unorthodox and he could have done that absent-mindedly but a fielder should avoid going to the batsman's crease when the batsman is batting. But yes, this should be laid to rest, it's not a big deal.

BCCI trying to move the Gabba test, despite signing off on it, purely because they know they have very little chance (not impossible) of winning there, even though Sydney has an active Covid outbreak, but QLD had 1 case, and that the hotel quarantine in QLD is no different to what Sydney were offering.

Gabba, SCG, Melbourne, Adelaide, it's still Australia right?

We can go as far back as when Kohli got caught ball tampering, but not only did BCCI deny it, but the only reason he wasn't banned is because it needs to be raised within 365days of the incident, and it was just outside of that.


Never heard of this.

I've already pointed out where Australia isn't perfect, and I'm happy to accept that, but the same can never be said about Indian cricket supporters. Just look at the Smith/Warner/Bancroft ban. Warner and Bancroft were the only ones to cheat, but Smith was banned because we decided that the captain should also be punished for this happening within the team, despite him being the best batsman in the world. The ICC ban was only a matter of matches, but because Australia has such a high expectation of integrity, it was Cricket Australia who banned the 3 players for 9-12mths, even South Africa, who has had du plussis been caught twice for ball tampering, just took the ICC ban.

I think CA made a really good decision by banning for 1 year, mistakes happen, that's fine. Just look at the way Kohli supported Smith when the crowd was booing him. Smith is the best in Tests certainly but Kohli is the best across all formats currently.

India have the reputation for a reason, and they continue to hold it because of questionable decisions such as those I've pointed out. I would love for them to play within the spirit, but it will obviously not happen any time soon, and it's pretty sad to see.

Mate, even former Aussie players are praising the fight shown by India in this series and apart from you I haven't really seen anyone talking about India not playing within the spirit of the game.

When you don't play within the spirit, when you cherry pick conditions, and when you sub out players by bending rules, playing with 12 players instead of 11, they will never be seen as a great team by anyone outside of India, as there will always be a question mark around it, and the players deserve better than that. So in the end, the only people these management decisions and BCCI decisions hurt are the Indian team.

I agree, this team is not the greatest like say the Windies in the 80s or the Aussies in 90s and 2000s but it's not because of cheating/not playing within spirit, it's because we still haven't been dominant enough despite fighting in away conditions. Once we start winning series in England, NZ, Australia, SA at a stretch, that's when I'll say that the current Indian team is great. But even Australia at their peak struggled in India.

It honestly goes on and on, some is cheating and some is just not playing in the spirit of the game, or in the spirit of the rules, but this is also why I don't talk to Indian supporters about their cricket team because they refuse to ever accept what India does.

The same can be said about Australian players, in fact Aussie players have been notorious for the constant sledging they dish out to the opposition teams. After the Smith scandal, Martyn himself said that they have to change that culture.

Anyway, this will go on and on, let's just agree to disagree.

Regardless of what happened in the past and the intense rivalry, started respecting the Australian team after watching this:



And the way they introduced Kohli ;)


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Day 1 - Aus 274/5

Very sloppy fielding by India which means that after day 1 it looks like Australia's unbeaten record at the Gabba since 1988 will stay intact. Labuschagne played really well for his hundred but damn he's been so lucky throughout this series. Our injury woes continue as Saini too gets injured. Hope he'll atleast be able to bowl in the 2nd innings.