Australia v India Test, Day One Report Card
Featuring Test cricket, puppetry, introversion and Marcus Harris comparisons
Test Cricket
Grade: A+
Right. Cricket during waking hours. In Test match form. Yes, please.
Especially since the last hope for any kind of belated fun in the eternal T20 World Cup that keeps invading my morning notifications was crushed when England were beaten by India in the semi-final. (And, yes, I know England-Australia rivalry is supposed to trump all other factors, but I would very much have been behind Harry Brook’s side stumble-farting their way to enough cobbled together wins to claim a trophy in the immediate aftermath of being thrashed in the Ashes, with all the coachly confusion that would entail. Amusing stuff. As amusing as Australia not escaping the group stage when the two teams who did escape their group failed to win a single match in the Super Eights? Probably not, but that’s perhaps the ol’ Ashes rivalry showing. Anyway, what are we supposed to hope for now? A comical New Zealand win? Grow up.)
The important thing is that we have Test cricket again. More importantly, the final Test in the multi-format series between Australia and India.
Now, India can’t win. By which I mean, they can’t win the series. They can obviously win individual matches (and indeed, the T20 series 2-1, with Sophie Molineux’s women belatedly standing by Mitch Marsh’s men in the grand old Australian tradition of shortest form indifference). But since Australia then won the ODIs 3-0, they have a large enough point advantage that the best India can do is level the series with a Test match victory.
What they’d need to do to accomplish this is get off to a good start. Which is why they’d have been annoyed with losing the toss, being asked to bat and having Smriti Mandhana bowled for four runs by Australian debutante Lucy Hamilton in just the sixth over.
Still, a left-arm quick taking early wickets in Perth? Good way to start a Test summer. Good way to finish a Test summer.
Puppetry
Grade: D
India never really recovered from that unsteady start. Especially when Annabel Sutherland took the ball and began moving it all over the place.
Sutherland found edges that flew through all kinds of gaps to the boundary, with Alyssa Healy being made to pay for the foolish oversight of not having fourteen fielders in the slips cordon. (To be fair, a handful of mid offs might have come in handy as well, to counter the punches down the ground.)
Nevertheless, at one point, in the space of about five minutes, I heard the commentators claim that Sutherland was both ‘making the ball talk’ and ‘has the ball on a string’. Just outrageous marionettesque cheating. Shameful stuff from a two time Belinda Clark Award winner.
It therefore came as no surprise that Sutherland quickly used her mad puppetry skills to account for both Shafali Verma (caught behind by the human hands of Beth Mooney manipulating the Swedish Chef) and Pratika Rawal (snaffled at gully by Hamilton, despite the cordon heckling of Statler and Waldorf).
And when Darcie Brown bookended the session by skittling Harmanpreet Kaur’s stumps, India went to the first break 4/99.
(Any agreement yet on what we call the breaks in day/night Tests? No? I thought not.)
Introversion
Grade: C+
Of course, my major problem was that, due to circumstances beyond my control, I’d been forced to switch to the free-to-air Channel Seven coverage rather than my usual Fox Cricket. Now, I’m not a snob about this. Both sets of commentators have their pros and cons. Their terrible, terrible cons. I primarily prefer the Fox Cricket coverage because I don’t have to listen to television commercials for TV shows I’ll never watch after every over.
Or, as it turns out, Justin Langer. Who, within seconds of me switching coverage, began talking about ‘introversion’ in the dressing room when he meant ‘introspection’.
Although, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe JL knows the Myers-Brigg results of the dismissed India batters’ well enough to understand that they’re all kicking off with a big old I rather than an E. Maybe they all just need some time alone to recharge their batteries. I can relate.
Shamefully, they weren’t allowed to spend too much time alone, however, because there was a lot of distracting coming and going to the dressing room in the middle session as India continued to lose steady wickets. They fell to 8/157, before a late rally from Kashvee Gautam helped them reach 198 all out shortly after second break. (‘Dinner’? Weren’t we calling it dinner at one point?)
Marcus Harris Comparisons
Grade: F
Australia therefore found themselves batting under lights. And, as luck would have it, India found themselves bowling under lights. Sayali Satghare, a fine ball puppeteer in her own right, took the first wicket, spearing one through Georgia Voll’s defences to have Australia 1/2.
This brought Ellyse Perry to the crease to join Phoebe Litchfield, and gave Harmanpreet the opportunity to have some fun. During India’s innings, Alyssa Healy was just reviewing all kinds of random shit. What did she care? Last Test. Burn them all. Enjoy yourself.
Harmanpreet therefore decided to get into the spirit of things by reviewing a caught behind off Perry that missed the bat by about a metre. Super stuff. Yes, it’s competitive international sport. But it’s also a bit of entertainment. Why not go mad for a moment? Great to see.
(Harmanpreet also burned one a little later on a caught behind that deflected off Healy’s sturdy stump. So, y’know, fair enough on that one perhaps.)
The point is that Perry had no intention of getting out. This is Test match cricket. This is her jam. Oh, sure, she’s played about as many of them as Marcus Harris, but that’s not her fault, is it? If anything, that just makes her even more determined not to get out when the opportunity arises to play one (not sure why this doesn’t work for Marcus - chat, let me know).
Anyway, so while Litchfield and Healy both made the stupid mistake of hitting the ball in the air anywhere near Jemimah Rodrigues, Perry did not. As a result, she made it to stumps on 43*, alongside Sutherland (20*), with Australia 3/96, trailing by 102.
(I’m assuming we still call it stumps, right?)