When Steve Waugh’s “invincibles” came to India in February 2001, nobody expected India to win the series. While Australia, with several all-time greats, was on a long winning run, India still suffered from the shock of the match-fixing saga. India defied all the odds during that historic season and upset that formidable Australian team in 2001, and India’s fightback began on this day, 22 years ago.
The series started as anyone expected, in Mumbai. At the Wankhede, Australia totally dominated India and came away with a dominating 10 wickets win, taking their winning run to 16 consecutive Tests. Even though the star Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar hit half-centuries in both innings, he could not stop the Australian juggernaut as they ran roughshod over the Indian team.
By the time the second Test started in Kolkata, most Indian fans had accepted that they were going to lose the series, and the start of the Kolkata Test didn’t give them any reason to think otherwise. Australia, led by skipper Steve Waugh’s century piled on 445 in the first innings. India had Australia at 269 for 8 but then Waugh did what he did best, batting with the tail. Along with Gillespie and McGrath, he put on 176 runs for the last 2 wickets.
In response, India had an abject collapse and scored only 171 with VVS Laxman’s 59 being the only shining light. Leading by 274, Australia decided to impose follow-on, a decision that ensured that teams started to avoid the follow-on in later years.
While following on, Indian team management made a switch, they put Laxman at 3 instead of 6, and put Dravid at 6, a decision that was going to change Test cricket forever. Coming in at 3, Laxman led the Indian team’s fightback as they put up a much better fight while following on. Still, when Ganguly departed at 232, India was 42 runs from avoiding an innings defeat as current Indian coach Rahul Dravid joined Laxman.
What happened next is the stuff of legends. Laxman and Dravid batted, and batted, and batted, and then batted some more. on 14th March 2001. Laxman and Dravid batted the whole day as a bowling attack comprising 2 of the greatest bowlers ever, Warne and McGrath, and two other exceptional bowlers, Gillespie and Kasprowicz, failed to get a single wicket.
Steve Waugh tried everyone, they used 9 bowlers in total during that partnership but to no avail. On 14 March 2001, there was nothing getting past Laxman and Dravid. Eventually, the partnership ended the next day at 376 when Laxman got out, but by then India was well on top.
Indian captain Ganguly declared once Dravid fell setting Australia a target of 384 but Australia could manage only 212 in response as Harbhajan Singh took 6 wickets to add to his 7 wicket-haul in the first innings while Sachin Tendulkar chipped in with 3 massive wickets.
Australians were stunned as their 16-match winning streak was broken in spectacular fashion, and then they went on to lose the next Test in Chennai in another dramatic encounter to lose the series 1-2.
That Laxman-Dravid partnership scared the teams off imposing follow-on for years. That day of batting, against the highest standard of bowling one could imagine, still gives goosebumps to everyone who saw it. It still remains the greatest day of test cricket India has ever experienced.
