We already knew it was going to be big. We were told for months, through various montages of Virat Kohli back when he knew how to score runs, through all sorts of articles on why the team selection should be picked entirely from Western Australia, and of course, from hazy memories.
For 10 years the Australian team had not managed to lay their hands on the Border-Gavaskar trophy, despite besting the Indians in front of the Spirit of Cricket in the WTC final of 2023, and then ruining the best-laid plans of the BCCI and Indian Curators Union in the World Cup final a few months later.
We pretended 2018/19 didn’t happen, and of course, it didn’t, (because as Kolhi reminded us on Day 3 in Sydney as his team imploded without the magic of Jasprit Bumrah) that was the ‘Year of the Sandpaper’, and nothing much happened that year of note.
We try to forget 2020/21, which has an asterisk the size of the subcontinent next to it, because it was still COVID times, and as far as I’m aware the Australian team was suffering from long COVID and Rishabh Pant took advantage of us when we clearly needed doctors, not wicket-keepers.
Of course, there were 2017 and 2023 in India, which the Wisden almanacs will show both went down as 2-1 series wins to India, but as the saying goes, “out of time-zone, out of mind”.
Anyway, who can trust a series where spinners open the bowling?
So, if we are to take a page out of the English book of orthodoxy, this was the only series that mattered, and by (Sam) Konstas, it delivered in spades.
Jasprit Bumrah and Virat Kohli celebrate with teammates after dismissing Usman Khawaja. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
There will be some corners of the internet who think the Indians went too far, their intimidatory behaviour towards a child who finished high school a year ago, their send-offs for blokes who have recently pilfered them for countless boundaries, and their inability to walk through airports without feeling the need to invent privacy laws that don’t exist.
Other corners will say that the Aussies are arrogant cheats whose bulging trophy cabinets belie their swear words directed at fully grown men, their favouritism after umpires have been tricked by optical illusions, and their rapacity at daring to play reverse scoops and mid-wicket swats against their unflappable talisman.
In my eyes, apart from what an ageing superstar and former ambassador of the game did in the opening hour of the Boxing Day test, it’s all cinema. It’s a rivalry that has been threatening to do this for nigh on a decade now. It’s cricket at its most exciting, it’s bums on seats all over the country in Test matches and BBL matches.
It’s not quite the Ashes, sure. But it’s getting close.
Beau Webster celebrates hitting the winning runs. (Photo by Darrian Traynor/Getty Images)
More importantly, and more broadly, it’s what Test cricket needs. The encroaching factors of franchise cricket, diminishing attention spans and new generations shaping the sport to how they see fit are coming, and they’re coming fast and without mercy.
Test cricket will survive, but this is exactly what it needs to do so. It needs a bit of controversy, it needs a bloke showing his empty pockets to a thousand people who are calling him various names in 30-plus degree heat.
It needs Mohammed Siraj and Travis Head having words, bails being replaced, re-replaced, and re-re-replaced. It needs players like Konstas and Yashasvi Jaiswal, who in all too quickly of a time, will be the only players from this series playing in a future edition of the BGT.
This is what makes Test cricket great, and what sets it apart not just from other formats of the game, but from other sports around the world.
This fight started on the 22nd of November 2024 and ended an eternity later on the 5th of January 2025 after six weeks of hard-fought cricket that a 3-1 scoreline does justice to, but could never tell the whole story.
What this series has done on a macro level, is capture the imagination of the broader Australian public on a scale probably not seen since the sandpaper saga. Credibility was destroyed on that day in South Africa, and it’s taken almost seven years to build it back up again. But finally, cricket is front page news again.
Mohammed Siraj celebrates with teammates. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
It’s talked about in pubs and cafes in the vibrant days of the summer holidays. It’s on horizontal mobile phone screens at family gatherings. The radios are on and blaring up and down the coast as the waves crash nearby. Text messages are flying with ‘did you see that?’ and ‘could we really do it this year?’
Cricket is relevant again, and sure, most of the people who tuned in over this unforgettable summer will probably tune out once the BBL ends and the footy train rolls back into town.
The tours of Sri Lanka, the West Indies, and even the WTC final will be relegated to the backs of minds.
But come November, as a rejuvenated, young, fun British team board their plane to contest the Ashes once more, cricket relevancy will kick into overdrive.
If you thought this was big, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
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