In the very end, it was more fizzle than fizz, though something else had threatened earlier. Mind you, the very end came right in the middle, Australia winning the fifth Test against India halfway through the third day in Sydney.
It was not even the middle if you counted overs bowled, the match using 190 of a possible 450 on a pitch that grew less fit for purpose with each passing day. That tallied with the broader contest: early finishes in Perth and Adelaide, rain in Brisbane, all resulting in the third-fewest deliveries ever bowled across a five-Test series.
The series outcome is what should be regarded first, Australia going to 3-1 after chasing 162 in Sydney with six wickets in hand. The future significance is that this qualifies Australia for the World Test Championship final against South Africa in June, regardless of what happens on their upcoming tour to Sri Lanka.
The longer term significance was a return to home-ground advantage after India won the previous two series in Australia, and Australia winning custody of the Border-Gavaskar trophy after last doing that in 2015. In the short term, the significance was Australia coming back from the belting they received first up in Perth.
At that point, the home team got panned – there were predictions of an Indian walkover, analyses that the Australian batting was frail and that no one in it had a clue how to play Jasprit Bumrah. And broadly, those things remained true.
The big difference came from Australia’s bowlers. A ram-raid in Adelaide, the better of the draw in Brisbane, and a nerveless last-session extraction in Melbourne preceded the Sydney smash. India had won in Perth after declaring on 487, but six of their other nine innings were all out for under 200.
The Sydney pitch has to be answerable for some of that: India 185, Australia 181, India 157, and Australia stuttering to 162 for four. With serious lateral seam movement and bounce, it perfectly suited Scott Boland, player of the match with 10 for 76, but got more erratic with time.
In the first day and a half the assistance was noticeable but did not seem excessive, with bad shot selection playing into the fall of wickets. But as the match wore on the batters became more like ducks in a shooting gallery, and by the final day the high bounce was extreme, balls steepling off a full length to startle batters, wicketkeepers, and sometimes umpires or slip fielders.
It was in that context that India lost their final four wickets while adding 16 to their overnight score, and had Bumrah been fit at that point, 162 might well have been defendable. Instead, in his absence due to a back injury, his fellow fast bowlers Mohammed Siraj and Prasidh Krishna were tasked with taking charge in his stead, and under that pressure they strained too hard and lost control.
Wides, byes over the keeper, no-balls, freebies down the leg-side, pointless bouncers on a pitch that had been devastating on a good length, every error was there. They conceded 35 from the first three overs, more than 20% of the target, with Sam Konstas and Usman Khawaja having to do very little while being outscored by extras.
For some reason Konstas still got out to a daft slog on 22, needless given the way bowlers were self-destructing around him, and it brought Prasidh back to a state of clarity. He followed with the wickets of Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith, leaving the latter stuck on 9,999 career runs.
At 58 for three, with more than a hundred yet to score, there was a chance for India. Again on 104, when Usman Khawaja nicked a pull after compiling an important 41. But without Bumrah, and with the other two running out of puff, there was not enough menace to keep the wickets coming.
India will be frustrated with the performance, despite the challenging surface, given that a couple more individual innings of even medium substance could have made all the difference. In both their innings, Rishabh Pant was the only player to get beyond the 20s. There will also be the frustration that Bumrah’s body broke down at the last, after a national record of 32 wickets in an away series. The frustration of bungling a great position in Melbourne, and of giving up the early lead in the series.
Australia will probably be quietly relieved at the scoreline. There were plenty of things that went wrong, and plenty of questions remain about selection, best teams, regeneration, and future planning, with half a dozen Tests, all on foreign shores, before the Ashes in the next southern summer. That will come around quickly.
But before then there is Australia’s second World Test Championship final, in June, and that is where their attention must go, as the game looks to centre more than just the same old rivalry.
