Aussies are the game's greatest fighters

​Partab Ramchand

They came over to India without some key players. Thanks to various factors, mainly injuries: Brad Haddin, Michael Clarke, Shaun Tait and Nathan Bracken could not join the Aussie squad for the ODI series. So many withdrawals can lower a team's morale but Ricky Ponting and his men have continued regardless, and in fact, won the first game of the seven-match series.

Since then their plight has been unenviable. After every match they have lost important players, through injury, and this has tested the bench strength to the limit. Brett Lee, James Hopes, Tim Paine and Peter Siddle have all flown home, the reserve players have been drafted in and replacements have been flown in.

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It is a wonder that the Aussie have any morale left but the fact remains that about the halfway mark the series is deadlocked at two all. This is a tribute to the resilience of the Aussies. This is one quality that the Aussies possess in abundance. They are the game's greatest fighters - a quality that generations of cricket followers have known and admired.

Even when they have gone through lean periods they have held their own with weak squads, thanks to their commendable never say die attitude. Their inherent hunger for success - typified by the title of one of Steve Waugh's books 'Never Satisfied' - has seen them come back from hopeless positions to register unexpected victories, and Mohali was but the latest in a long line of such triumphs.

With a limp attack and with their pace spearhead Mitchell Johnson having an off day, they still managed to successfully defend a total of 250 which to be candid, seemed quite inadequate on a good batting surface. But there is always an Aussie or two who rises to the occasion and on Monday, it was the duo of Doug Bollinger, playing only his fifth ODI and Shane Watson, who deservedly won the man of the match award who came good when it mattered most.

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One could not believe that this was the same Watson who bowled a particular ragged penultimate over to concede 20 runs in the first ODI at Baroda. This time he kept his nerve, maintained a steady line and length and while he could not be hit easily, he also picked up valuable wickets. As for Bollinger, all that one has to say is that had the Aussies been at full strength, he would still be warming the benches. But then he has made full use of his opportunities and this too is an admirable Aussie trait.  

The Indians are trying their best but whatever they do the Aussies do better with the result, that while the series is locked at two matches all the home team's hopes of dislodging the visitors from the top spot in the rankings seem to getting dimmer with every match. The home team has been performing admirably in the series even if it is against an Aussie side, not exactly at full strength. There are certain positives about the batting, bowling and fielding, for which MS Dhoni and his men can justifiably be proud:

The emphatic victory at Nagpur followed by a notable win against the odds at New Delhi, has kept them in the hunt for a series triumph. But the narrow defeat at Baroda and the unexpected setback at Mohali, have meant that they are back to square one going into the fifth game of the series. In pure arithmetic, India will have to win all three matches if they are to topple the Aussies and to put it in simple terms this seems most unlikely despite as we have seen the Aussie injury list is growing by the day.

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It must have been galling for the Indians to lose a match which they seemed to have in their grasp. But even in the face of a modest target a team will find things difficult when the highest individual score is 40 and the highest partnership is 40. For once the Indians didn't miss much in the field, symbolised by four run-outs but here again the Aussies matched them: with Ricky Ponting running out Yuvraj Singh and Ravindra Jadeja - crucial dismissals both.      

All is not lost for the Indians. If the dream of becoming the numero uno team looks like 'Mission Impossible', they can at least, strive to win the series. They have produced much good cricket and to me symbolising this was the Dhoni-Yuvraj partnership at the Kotla. On a pitch not conducive to strokeplay and with the team in an unenviable position, the two displayed a great deal of maturity in first handling the grim situation and then taking India to a comfortable victory to break the trend in the series, which has seen the side batting first win on three of four occasions.

At full strength the Indians are a match for Ponting and his men. The Indians can match the Aussies in batting, bowling and fielding but as I said, the Aussies make up for their injury problems and adverse situations with certain resilient qualities that are beyond other teams.

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