OPINION
Follow UsChasing 200 was always going to be an easy task for India, or so I thought. Being an Australian fan couldn’t have been tougher. The crowd was daunting, the run-chase was meagre, and all it would take was one good knock for me to go back into a shell.
When Ishan Kishan drove one without moving his feet straight to the slips, I wanted to celebrate instantly but then realised it was too soon. How about when Rohit Sharma got out? The thought was there, but it was still too early. When Shreyas Iyer got out, it felt like the opportune time. India were 2/3, and that’s when I let out a roar.
Australia all the way, mate. They are going to crush India now, aren’t they? My mind has already made up who to praise and who will be blamed later in the day.
But just like the last two decades of supporting Australia, they drew another blank in India. Right when it mattered, they squandered the chance of winning. It was an unforgiving night. How did Mitchell Marsh put that down, how did India win this?
It was disappointing but nearly not as much. Supporting Australia in India is already a tough gig.
At this point, you would be wondering where and when my love for Australia came from? It was way back in 2003 when I was around five. While I held a bat a little earlier than that in my life, it was yellow all the way through.
When Australia beat India one-sided in the final of the ODI World Cup back in 2003, I could hardly understand things, but still, the memory of looking at the newspapers and television channels screaming ‘Spring bat’ has lived on for ages.
Despite my entire family around me supporting India, I was stern in allegiance to Ricky Ponting’s men.
Maybe it was easy supporting them because they kept winning. Maybe they always found a way to win despite the situation. Maybe it is that they made winning look too damn easy? Or maybe you don’t think a lot as a kid and pick a side.
But as a growing adult, backing them and supporting them to the hilt wasn’t as easy.
2017, Australia tour of India
I was still doing my undergraduate, and Australia had more than a foot in the series to beat India. They had already won in Pune and showed the world that they were ready for the contest. The second Test in Bangalore was held immense importance. Beating India in India is no easy feat. Only the bravest of braves have beaten them. So much so on wickets that turn more than politicians after elections.
I still remember when Mitchell Starc and Matthew Wade were going in the first innings, I was just counting my time on when Australia will be in a position to lift the trophy. Given I was at university, a strict one, usage of mobile phones in class was strictly prohibited, and they would even make you cry if you had your phone confiscated.
A lead of 87 runs. Oh, my hopes were quite big. Even though India scored 274, all that Australia needed was just 188. Couldn’t the result have gone any other way? I still remember watching the match in between breaks and thinking can’t they bat more sensibly? Do they not know how to play spin?
Some of the thoughts were naive, but those are your first reactions when you see your team squandering a prime opportunity to beat India in India. It made things worse, especially when the match was happening in the same city. All those Indian fans came back to haunt me as Australia not just lost a grip on this Test but the series.
Someone who is unequivocal about his support for Australia soon began to ponder. Was it the right choice? While my family always accepted the decision, were the others too naive to accept someone supporting another country other than India?
17 Feb 2023: second Test in Delhi
It was yet again India vs Australia. At 139/7, India were on the mat. It was just Ravichandran Ashwin and Axar Patel. Except they were going to play a blinder and bail India out. Even at that moment, with just one run lead, my hopes were pinned on Australia to nab this Test at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi.
With the ball turning square, there was no way that India would play out Nathan Lyon and Todd Murphy. No way. But then it turned out Australia couldn't put their bat to full use, going from 65/2 to 113 all-out, all in 18 overs.
18 OVERS. It took less than a T20 innings to pick up eight wickets. And a few hours later, all I could see around was Indian fans celebrating. All of that build-up for a series to be just this one-sided, I thought.
It hurt to be an Australian fan that day, but I had seen far worse: the defeat in Bangalore in 2017, the defeat in the 2018-19 Test series, then came the crusher, the defeat at Gabba, where we were supposed to be on a streak?
Just like that, all the hopes of finally seeing a tight clash between these two teams vanished.
7 June 2023, World Test Championship final
Australia, at least, win this. That was the hope. But at least knowing that the conditions weren’t going to turn and the ball was going to seam, Australia had a better chance. Even when Travis Head was doing the most Trav-of-things, and hitting the Indian bowlers, the fear was there that this Indian team could make a comeback.
Fortunately, they didn’t. They folded like a pack of cards in the run-chase, and it was quite a thorough display of clinical cricket. Everyone around in the office had their faces against the grim wall. Some even started the blame game, and sitting back, it was a fun watch. But somewhere down the line, I knew that the World Cup was where the stakes were going to be the highest.
19 November 2023: ODI World Cup final
Woke up and felt fresh. But still, the fear of playing India at a venue that housed 1,29,990 Indian fans was in itself daunting. India would eat Australia alive, and if they didn’t, what a shame.
That’s when a small thought occurred to me. The last time I supported Australia like a true Australian fan was in the 2011 ODI World Cup.
I still remember how well-placed Australia were with the bat before the middle-order collapse succumbed us to just 260 on board. I certainly remember how Ponting trudged back, and I was thinking, is this the send-off that Ponting would get for the dynasty he built? The Motera certainly loved every bit of that day.
Even when Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag were going strong, I remember how I hoped for one wicket. Just one wicket, and prayed that India would crumble. At 187/5, I went quietly into my room and chanted a prayer or two, hoping Australia would continue their dominance.
The thoughts of Sreesanth, Harbhajan Singh, and Yuvraj Singh making a mockery of the Australian team were still at the top of my head. It couldn’t have been sweeter. But when Brett Lee fell over and hurt himself, it broke me from inside. The bleeding was just poetic at that point.
Even though Australia thrashed India later in the 2015 ODI World Cup semi-final, the payback had to be in INDIA.
I quickly wanted to erase this memory from my head. As I walked into the office, I saw no one; it was surreal to have witnessed that there weren’t people. I only hoped that there weren’t too many later on, too. But when Rohit was smashing the ball, there was applause everywhere, I felt like it was the Narendra Modi Stadium.
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Spare a thought for all the Aussie fans there at the ground (10 of them). India started to tumble dry as the match progressed, like in a washing machine. No one got going. Even when someone did, all India could get is 240.
241 should be a relatively easy run-chase, right? It would have if my confidence level was high with the team. Only a few days ago, they scampered through against South Africa, who quite don’t possess the same bowling powerhouse as India. Most certainly, they don’t have the spinners as threatening as India does, either. So, it was like, will Australia shoot themselves in the foot?
When David Warner and Head got going, there was a nervous, happy energy in my head. I felt like HELL YEAH but quickly realized that if either got out, it would just be a SULKY day. Not a lot of hopes were pinned on Mitchell Marsh against the moving ball. He proved me right, yet again.
But when Steve Smith got out, I couldn’t hear a thing. There was screeching and screaming all around me. There was pin-drop silence in front of me and white noise in my ear. It took me a few seconds to recover from that. It was ringing in my ear.
The only thought in my head was: “WHY THE HECK WOULDN’T YOU REVIEW THAT, SMITH?” If you had allowed me to travel to Ahmedabad, I would have barged into the dressing room with that one question.
But as the innings progressed, the scream and screech turned into numbness; there was visible frustration around me. I could sense that the heads were dropping, not in Ahmedabad but in Bangalore. So much so, a colleague immediately utters, I told you Australia were going to chase it down easy, dew bhai, dew.
I knew that dew would play a factor, but so did Australia’s middle-order. They have drawn blanks every time the team needed them to perform, and that’s all that was there in my head. I still couldn’t erase the image of Marnus Labuschagne getting out to a reverse sweep, I still couldn’t forget how Maxwell played the worst shot of the tournament.
That was the thought in my head. But luckily, Head played using his head, meaning that India were put under immense pressure. As the dew started kicking in, Australia grew more confident, and so did I. Even with 80 runs required, the Indian fans around me started mourning in what could have been a hell of a tournament. It turned out to be hell instead.
However, it was too early for me to celebrate. Maybe over the years, I have seen the team lose from a far more comfortable position that even 80 runs seemed a lot to me. But I felt like the job was done when Head walked away after his 137. I felt like it was David beating the Goliath.
It was like Australia were lilliputs, and India were the Gulliver. There was only one thought that kept me going throughout: Australians never quit. I knew they were going to fight, and they did. Perhaps this is a fitting way of conquering things in India.
For all the losses, the 2023 ODI World Cup feels like a redemption. A win in India against India in front of 1,28,000 people couldn’t get any sweeter. Plus, to snatch a World Cup from right under the microscopic eyes of the Indian fans was the perfect end to a long journey. A complete 20 years after watching Australia lift their first title since my cricket-watching days, I saw them lift the title for the FOURTH TIME!!
I’m an Australian fan and not an anti-national.
