Hap­py New Year! 2025 is up­on us, and nor­mal­ly, I pre­view some up­com­ing im­por­tant sport­ing dates in the cal­en­dar. But I ask for your in­dul­gence as I need to go back to one of the most scin­til­lat­ing Test se­ries that I have had the plea­sure of wit­ness­ing.

The re­cent­ly con­clud­ed In­dia-Aus­tralia Test se­ries played in Aus­tralia wasn’t just a bat­tle be­tween crick­et­ing gi­ants; it was a the­atri­cal mas­ter­piece. The home coun­try won the se­ries 3-1, with one Test drawn.

Based on this se­ries, I am con­vinced Test crick­et will sur­vive. This se­ries had every­thing: from con­tro­ver­sy, sledg­ing, play­ers an­tag­o­nis­ing record crowds, to re­view de­ci­sions in abun­dance, in­clud­ing those where it was the um­pire’s call when the ball was just hit­ting the bails or the out­side of the stumps.

The se­ries at­tract­ed a re­mark­able 837,000 spec­ta­tors across the five Tests, not bad for a for­mat of the game that “lacks in­ter­est”. A more re­mark­able stat is that in the Mel­bourne Test, with its 375,000-strong crowd, shat­tered a 90-year-old record, prov­ing that the “death” of Test crick­et has been great­ly ex­ag­ger­at­ed.

All of a sud­den, the in­ter­est in Test crick­et in Aus­tralia is back. For those types of crowds, when there is tele­vi­sion and so many oth­er sports be­ing played world­wide, speaks vol­umes for the two teams and the cap­ti­vat­ing na­ture of this ri­val­ry.

Even Syd­ney, de­spite a rain-cur­tailed match that last­ed three days, saw dai­ly crowds ex­ceed­ing 40,000. The at­ten­dance fig­ures could have been even high­er had it not been for weath­er in­ter­rup­tions and ear­ly fin­ish­es, with the Syd­ney and Ade­laide Test match­es on­ly last­ing three days and Perth go­ing for four days.

Tru­ly amaz­ing to think that this se­ries could have po­ten­tial­ly had over one mil­lion spec­ta­tors in at­ten­dance! It seemed as if the en­tire na­tion of Aus­tralia had swapped their bar­be­cues for crick­et bats, such was the fer­vour.

In­dia would con­sid­er them­selves un­lucky to lose the se­ries af­ter thrash­ing the Aussies in the open­ing Test, they seemed poised for dom­i­nance. How­ev­er, the Aussies, with the in­domitable Patrick Cum­mins at the helm, roared back with a vengeance from the Perth dis­as­ter in the first match, to win three of the next four Tests.

But if you know the Aussies’ men­tal­i­ty, this should have come as no sur­prise as they are fight­ers and it is of­ten said that when you think you have them down and out, they find a way to hit you when you least ex­pect it.

Cum­mins is the type of leader you strive for. Not on­ly is he a good crick­eter, he is a fight­er; a cap­tain who em­bod­ies the fight­ing spir­it of Aus­tralia, one that leads from the front.

He nev­er knows or un­der­stands when the chips are not in his hands and his de­ter­mi­na­tion to get the chips back in his hands is ad­mirable.

He in­deed has some gift­ed crick­eters around him; the leg­endary three-pronged pace at­tack of Mitchell Stark (376 Test wick­ets), Josh Ha­zle­wood (279 Test wick­ets) and Cum­mins him­self (294 Test wick­ets) has de­stroyed many Test na­tions who think they have good or even great bats­men.

Even when a team feels there is respite and the for­mi­da­ble trio is bro­ken up, as is what hap­pened when Ha­zle­wood got in­jured, up steps Scott Boland for the fi­nal two Tests, who went on to scalp 16 wick­ets in those two match­es. What a re­place­ment to have, prov­ing that the Aussie pace-bowl­ing fac­to­ry is still churn­ing out world-class tal­ent.

I ad­mire the Aussie se­lec­tors. They are not afraid to take bold steps, go­ing with a 19-year-old open­er, Sam Kon­stas, to face ar­guably the best bowler in the world, Jasprit Bum­rah. Some of Kon­stas’ stroke play against Bum­rah was noth­ing short of jaw-drop­ping, as he showed no fear in scor­ing 60 on de­but.

The Aussie se­lec­tors al­so left out the ex­pe­ri­enced Mitchell Marsh for the fi­nal Test and went with a 31-year-old un­capped Tas­man­ian all­rounder, Beau Web­ster, who had played 94 first-class games with over 5,000 runs.

Again, not a bad choice, but the point is the se­lec­tors had the be­lief to try some­thing dif­fer­ent and it worked. I can on­ly hope some­one whis­pers this ap­proach to the lone West In­dies se­lec­tor.

In­dia, on the oth­er hand, re­lied too heav­i­ly on Bum­rah to get the wick­ets. Mo­hammed Sir­aj, who is a class bowler and got 20 wick­ets for the se­ries, couldn’t pro­duce when it mat­tered most in the fi­nal in­nings of the fifth Test when Bum­rah was off the field. Mo­hammed Sha­mi was bad­ly missed. The In­di­an bat­ting line­up, de­spite boast­ing stars like Ro­hit Shar­ma, Vi­rat Kohli and Shub­man Gill, fal­tered at cru­cial junc­tures. While the young Yashasvi Jaisw­al dis­played im­mense tal­ent, the pres­sure seemed to get to some of the se­nior play­ers. It ap­pears Shar­ma is on his way out and un­less Kohli’s form picks up in the next year or two, I ex­pect he could al­so be on his way out.

I like the look of Jaisw­al, he is go­ing to be the next great In­di­an bats­man. He is fear­less, has a wide ar­ray of strokes and will score runs every­where he plays. Bum­rah, un­doubt­ed­ly a force of na­ture, was right­ly hailed as the “Play­er of the Se­ries” with 32 wick­ets, how­ev­er, he was lim­it­ed with his bowl­ing in the fi­nal Test. Had he been on the field with that tricky Syd­ney wick­et, I felt the Aussies would have strug­gled to get the 162 they re­quired for vic­to­ry.

The com­men­ta­tors were singing the prais­es of Bum­rah, in par­tic­u­lar, for­mer Aus­tralian wick­et-keep­er Adam Gilchrist say­ing he is the best bowler in the world to­day, a state­ment I would not dis­agree with. How­ev­er, he went on to com­pare Bum­rah to for­mer West In­di­an greats like Mal­colm Mar­shall, Joel Gar­ner and Curt­ly Am­brose (he must have for­got­ten Andy Roberts, Michael Hold­ing and Col­in Croft), de­clar­ing that Bum­rah must be the great­est bowler of all time. I bet­ter stop there, as while Bum­rah is a phe­nom­e­nal tal­ent, com­par­ing him to the likes of Mar­shall, Gar­ner, Roberts, and Hold­ing is per­haps an un­in­formed opin­ion.

I am not aware if Gilchrist saw the West In­di­an greats up close and per­son­al, but if not, he needs to go back and look at footage. I won­der if he would have that same opin­ion then. While I tru­ly ad­mire Bum­rah, if I had to pick a team made up of the great­est of all time play­ers, he would not make it be­fore the great West In­di­an quicks. Maybe I am bi­ased.

In clos­ing, the West In­dies em­bark on a Test se­ries lat­er this month in Pak­istan and I don’t hold out much hope in them get­ting any­thing from the Tests. It will be the last of An­dre Co­ley’s tenure and if we are truth­ful, he did poor­ly out­side of the drawn se­ries with Aus­tralia. I know a lot of fans don’t give the team much of a chance go­ing for­ward with Daren Sam­my, but if he makes the nec­es­sary changes and gets the right play­ers and makes the Test team more com­pet­i­tive to gain se­lec­tion, who knows what can hap­pen go­ing for­ward? I ex­pect the pitch­es in Pak­istan to turn square from ball one and whether or not the West In­dies bats­men can cope with the turn­ing ball, well your guess is as good as mine.