Five unnoticed records that were broken in the Australia vs India Test series
It took 71 years for the Indian team to reach there. It wasn't the peak of Mount Everest or landing on Mars, but a Test series win against Australia in Australia. The team had toured the country 11 times in the past and managed to draw on three occasions (1-1 in 1980/81, 0-0 in 1985/86,1-1 in 2003-04) while losing in the other eight.
There were a couple of sweet victories in the past, but that didn’t win them a series. Come 2018 and they were to tour South Africa, England, and Australia in the same year. Unlike previous tours, the fast bowling unit was at their imperious best picking up 20 wickets in most of the matches they played.
In South Africa and England, the batsmen failed to capitalize on the inroads made by the bowlers and lost some close games. It was a matter of a couple of partnerships and the scorecard would have looked completely different. Then came the Australian tour and it was time for the batsmen to step up their game and when they did, won the series 2-1.
It was a collective team effort - be it good starts by Mayank Agarwal or classic Test batting by Cheteshwar Pujara or the way Rishabh Pant took on the Aussie pace attack down the order. The fast bowlers were on top of their game and stuck to the plan. They hit the right length and areas picking up important wickets at key moments in the match.
At the same time, the spinners had their role of holding one side and bowling tight spells which created a lot of pressure. Overall it was a series that erased a lot of records and wrote new ones. Let us look at the five unnoticed records from the series:
#1 Most wins in SENA countries by Kohli as Indian captain
2018 was a year that unleashed Virat Kohli’s captaincy skills. He was aggressive in his approach and led the team from the front. Even though the final scorecard in South Africa and England wasn’t in India's favour, the players had the belief that they could go out and win matches for the country.
He brought that belief in the team and developed a conducive atmosphere that helped the team to play in good spirit. As a result, they won Tests in South Africa and England along with two wins in Aust1ralia which sealed the series for the team.
It was the way he used his bowlers and showed belief in them. He showed someone like Jasprit Bumrah that he wasn’t limited to ODIs and T20Is but was equally talented to do well in the longer format as well.
He took the pressure off his batsman scoring some important runs throughout the series. Due to all these efforts, Kohli became the first Indian captain to have four victories in the SENA countries, breaking the previous record of 3 wins, which was jointly held by MS Dhoni and MK Pataudi.