Cricket is a great leveller. You can be basking in the clouds one day and end up in rock bottom the next. Highs and lows are part of the game, but chance also has a place in cricket. No one knows this better than Team India where two major extreme events occurred exactly four years apart on this very day – December 19.
Rewind to 2016. This was the fourth day of the fifth Test against England and India which was resumed at 391/4, 86 runs behind Chennai. They have already clinched the series 3-0 and are now looking to prevent England from securing a consolation win. They have done a lot.
Karun Nair was batting with Murali Vijay and after a fruitful partnership Vijay fell. Ravichandran walked Ashwin and the pair put on 181 and Ashwin departed for a good 67 as Nair crossed his century and walked forward. The seventh-wicket stand saw Karun and Ravindra Jadeja put on 138 before the all-rounder was decimated for 51 as Karun passed 200. His maiden Test ton had already been a double and now a hat-trick was on the cards by then.
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The moment came soon after when a boundary of 299 took him to 303. It was the third time an Indian had scored a Test 300 and was the second Indian to do so.
Virender Sehwag scored the first and second Test triple tons for India in 2004 and 2008. The declaration came at 759/7 and this was India’s highest Test total. This remains so to this day.
India went on to win the match and clinched the series 4-0.
Fast forward to 2020. It was day three of the first Test against Australia in Adelaide. India resumed at 9/1 with a total lead of 62 runs. The bowlers had rallied to keep Australia out for 191 after they had scored 244 runs in the first innings by our batsmen. But no one was prepared for what came next.
With the score 15/1, India lost four wickets in the space of five overs. The Australian duo of Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins were playing with venom and the Indian batsmen didn’t know what hit them. The likes of Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane were all at sea as the ball swung, bounced and honed with precision.
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With half the team gone for 15, there was bound to be known resistance this time and on 9/36, Mohammed Shami was forced to retire in pain and as a result the innings was over. So 36 is all. Yes India Lowest test score, breaking their 1974 total of 42 against England. It was also the lowest Test score since 1955. But believe it or not, in the overall list, it wasn’t even in the top four.
India would lose the match within three days by eight wickets and trail 1-0. But the series will see a massive comeback that will see India win a second successive Test series Down Under in January 2021 by a 2-1 margin. But that’s another story.
So two degrees, same dates, two different years. The two extremes when fans celebrated and mourned when they saw their stars dominate like gods and fall like mortals. Cricket is a funny old game, and such coincidences make it even more interesting.