Stop thinking about yesterday for a moment. Just go back a few weeks to that abject Indian surrender in Mumbai. Reread the epitaphs that were being written for this Indian side. Recall what you thought and said at the time. Now erase those epitaphs. Banish those thoughts. And eat your words.
You owe it to cricket and the country.
Because there is something that Indians forgot to do once the Australians beat us in Mumbai: We forgot to believe.
Not all of us. When VVS Laxman first arrived on the international scene, he would constantly mutter prayers when at the crease. And God, cruelly, would invariably catch him playing a false stroke. But during this series, he came to the profound realisation that it isn’t God hurling missiles at him from 22 yards away. It’s an Australian, a fellow member of the human race.
Laxman stopped praying and started playing. And after day three of the Kolkata Test, his teammates were in on his secret.
By day five in Chennai, the word had spread not just to the 11 men representing India, but around the Chidambaram stadium and beyond — to the Indian consciousness. We started believing we could win.
Well, most of the time.
Just 131 ahead from the day before Steve Waugh had told his men that a target of 150 would be good enough to snatch victory from India. With Harbhajan Singh on song on a wickedly bouncy pitch, they just about got there.
But the demons weren’t in the pitch. If anything, they were in the minds of those in the middle. For a while, they went to work. SS Das, who defended so resolutely in the first innings, played an unnecessary hook. Sadagoppan Ramesh set off for an unnecessary run. Though to be fair, Sachin Tendulkar got the closest thing to an unplayable delivery from Gillespie.
But then, Sourav Ganguly’s stroke was the closest thing to slip catching practice that you’d see in an international innings. And Rahul Dravid, solid as a rock since Kolkata, lobbed a leading edge to mid-off.
Meanwhile, at the other end, Laxman caressed, cajoled and clubbed the bowling around. At tea, India needed just 23 runs for victory and the belief that they could do it.
But self-belief is what drove Australia to 16 consecutive Test wins. Incidentally, they have some ability too. Very few human beings can hurl themselves full stretch at a five-and-a-half ounce cricket ball travelling at 150km an hour and catch it. Unfortunately for Laxman, Mark Waugh is one of them. Laxman stayed at the crease after the catch was taken, looking as if he was the victim of a crime.
Since the time they began this morning, the Australians had smelt blood. With Laxman gone, they were tearing into flesh. Dighe battled to squeeze out vital boundaries, but the Indian tail was being mauled. Bahutule lasted three balls, Zaheer Khan 13. Neither scored a run.
So when Harbhajan walked out, he would have traded any (or all) of his five wicket hauls for the four runs he was asked to get. Fittingly, a McGrath yorker squirted to point off his bat.
The match was won. But perhaps more significantly, a lost faith was restored.