Honestly, one saw it coming. A 10-day gap after the first game in sunny Perth was enough to precipitate the premonition that something unsavoury this way would come. Negotiating the pink ball isn’t something that the Indian test side does well yet and a defeat was almost pre-ordained to restore the necessary rancour and spice of a tour to Australia.
Many comeuppances and reckonings were due for India after the drubbing they handed Australia at Perth and the abrasive criticism that followed in the media (not to mention the conspiracy theories about the rift in the team floated). The tension in the air was so high that Starc snagging Perth centurion Jaiswal first ball of the game could be a moment more cinematic than the Gladiator sequel. But the reaction, at least from the team, wasn’t really the kind of nasty that you might have expected. Starc did let out a huzzah but he wasn’t anywhere near his man’s face.
Despite the barbs and clapbacks exchanged in the lead-up to Adelaide, the first real moment the two opposing teams came to blows was relatively late into the game. After a torrid time bowling to a Travis Head in a rampaging mood—having also dropped him a little over an hour ago—Mohammed Siraj finally got a low full toss to sneak past India’s newest arch-nemesis’s punishing blade.
Anger washed over the mercurial and often-overwhelmed Siraj’s face as he promptly dished the dismissed batter a curt send-off. The raised hand asked—nay, commanded—Head to be gone. Buzz off fella. A brief but adequately ugly exchange followed between the two as Head walked away after having given the Indian bowlers a decisive pasting. He seemed to have uttered the words f*** off. In an interaction later on, Head asserted that he had actually congratulated the bowler and that the words he had uttered were “well bowled”. The replay visuals, however, haven’t corroborated that yet—and since the exchange, though it completely turned the crowd against the Indian side, was so brief, it’s hard to locate just where it was that Head commended the delivery. Even if he had meant it as a swipe.
By the time he was done with India, Head—who is quickly eclipsing every other batter in the present day with his calm daredevilry and clutch performances— had scored a match-winning 140. Even for a guy of his repute and capability, this will stand as a career-defining innings. Then I don’t understand why he needed to defend the altercation—and an expletive that’s become perfectly normal in the first quarter of the 21st century—in a media interaction later with a dicey assertion like that. Well-bowled? It smacks of high-school behaviour: a smug pre-teen dispensing a barefaced lie to make his troubled classmate seem out of their senses. It’s almost like the time David Warner picked on Rohit Sharma for not “speaking English” in 2015.
Not that India’s conduct leading up to the dismissal had been any ideal. I get that Head has been giving them plenty of heartache ever since that fateful June day in 2023. He’s a party pooper for us. He’s public enemy number one. I doomscroll enough to know about the love-hate relationship fans in India have for him. But how could one not admire the way he singlehandedly yanked Australia out of potential precarity and made it worth every penny fans back home in Adelaide had paid to see the home boy bat? How could the opposition not walk up to the man to say a word of appreciation after a hundred as spectacular as that, like Matthew Hayden, too, pointed out?
I might have dug it had Starc really relished his moment against Jaiswal. The cold death stare, a rousing hum washing over the crowd, a few jibes from his teammates crowding around. It would have been the perfect mic drop moment. Who doesn't love the batter-bowler battle? The stakes would have gone way up when Jaiswal would walk into the middle to bat in the second innings. But the left-armer, who’s decidedly the only complete exponent of the pink ball experiment, probably knew the moment would come. An even tastier moment to relish. Or he knew that going 1-1 was more important than having his satisfaction. It was the discretion missing in Aamir Sohail’s conduct when he pointed the bat at Venkatesh Prasad towards the extracover region. What followed is enough to have me shrivel with embarrassment for at least another decade to come.
A lot’s been going around lately around the legendary status the India-Australia test rivalry has acquired and how the tables have turned every which way in India’s favour in the last two series. Rishabh Pant annoying the f**k out of Tim Paine, Nathan Lyon and Pat Cummins (which I believe was genuinely good-natured), Siraj alleging being subjected to racist taunts and what have you. Playing hard is fine but it’s not a good look when it doesn’t get you anywhere in the game. India seemed plain disgruntled with Head again raining on India’s parade (not like we didn’t drop him twice in quick succession when he was on 80-odd). The thing is that pointless drama is embarrassing to see for spectators and fans. Yashasvi Jaiswal’s sledge of Mitchell Starc was one for the ages because there’s a 13-year age difference and an even more vast experience difference between them. Last laughs must be last laughs—if you’re 130 runs behind in the game and conceding a run a ball, the opposition will cut yours short. Gesturing someone to leave after they’ve likely ended your last shot at a game isn’t the theatre we want.