36 All Out: A Car Crash In Slow Motion
Shocking, unprecedented, record-breaking, nightmarish, calamitous. No, I’m not talking about the year 2020, but in fact India’s disaster of a 2nd innings in the first session of Day 3 of the 1st Test match against Australia.
Virat Kohli was at a loss for words when asked about the day’s proceedings in the post match interview, after the match was wrapped up shortly after India’s demise for all of three dozen runs. “When you work hard for two days and put yourself in a strong position and then an hour puts you in a position where it's literally impossible to win… Very hard to put those feelings to words.” That one hour was like watching a car crash in slow motion. You are astounded and think back to how it even got to this point, you have a dreaded sense of what’s coming next, yet you can’t help but watch. Each moment compounds the agony and ultimately you are left traumatized, shell-shocked, and afraid to ever leave your house again. If that last part’s slightly exaggerated then maybe it’s an aftershock of witnessing that earthquake of an hour in Adelaide where seemingly nothing went right for the Indians but everything perfectly for the Aussies.
Similarly, Australian skipper Tim Paine found it hard to believe the rate at which the wickets fell: “I said this morning that both these attacks have the ability to take quick wickets. Didn't expect them to come this quick.” The batting wasn’t nearly as atrocious as it usually is when a collapse of this magnitude takes place, when a side loses all ten wickets inside a session, which happens once in a blue moon in a Test match. That is not to say it was good, the batting was ordinary for the most part. But it was met with and supplanted by extraordinary bowling.
Pat Cummins showed why he’s the number one ranked bowler in Tests by starting the avalanche. He plucked a catch off of his own bowling to get rid of the first victim of the day, Jasprit Bumrah. The nightwatchman departed duly. Cheteshwar Pujara strode out all set to resume annoying the bowlers with his dogged determination to bat for days. But it took Cummins just a couple of overs to end those plans prematurely with a near unplayable delivery that angled in from the off-stump line and just stayed its course to zip past, tempting an edge from Pujara and sending him packing for a duck.
Then it was Josh Hazlewood’s turn to join the party and display again why his immaculate line and length is often compared to that of Glenn McGrath. He nabbed a wicket first ball, then two in his first over. That double strike of Mayank Agarwal and Ajinkya Rahane reduced India to 15/5. Batsmen came, batsmen left. The scoreboard remained untouched. Prods and pokes drew faint edges. Runs were a distant memory.
The Australians were consolidating a bowling session right out of a dream by casting a cloud of self-doubt, misery, and fear over the Indians’ heads. Kohli attempted to step out of the shadow but perished driving a full and wide delivery from Cummins. The cloud burst, the floodgates broke, and the storm engulfed an Indian side that did not look mentally prepared to handle this kind of an onslaught.
After Kohli fell, the result was a foregone conclusion. It was just a matter of when. Expecting a similar response from the Indian bowlers in the fourth innings, defending 90 runs, was a bit much. Bumrah started the day as a nightwatchman but barely two hours after being dismissed he was expected to help his team, now one bowler short, make early inroads, which was impractical.
The nature of the now infamous ’36’ meant that the Aussie bowlers ended with video-game like figures: Cummins with 4/21 in his 10 overs and Hazlewood with an incredulous 5/8 in his 5 overs. Mitchell Starc is no slouch compared to these two, but his services weren’t really required.
This match will no doubt spawn an innumerable number of jokes and memes at the expense of the Indian batsmen. In the 21.2 overs which constituted India’s sorry excuse of an innings, not a single batsman managed double figures. And only Hanuma Vihari and Wriddhiman Saha, out of all those who came out to face the music today, even managed double figures when it comes to balls faced. For India it took a ricochet off of the fielder at short leg then a circus throw by Saha between his legs and backwards onto the stumps to finally fetch an Australian wicket. A stunning and historic collapse; the night part of the day-night match rendered unnecessary. So the memes would be justified.
Kohli will leave, Shami could be injured possibly, it will only get harder. But captain Rahane and the rest of the squad cannot let this horror of a day define the series. They will have to dig deep and show what bounce-back-ability is.
The second Test is the traditional Boxing Day Test, starting on the 26th in Melbourne. It will be the last piece of cricket action for the year. But as we have learned in 2020, tomorrow always brings something more unbelievable than yesterday.