The Perth Conquest

A great day in the history of Indian cricket. Even if you isolate the events leading up to this test and see, you will still understand the enormity of this achievement. A victory over the worlds best team in the world's fastest pitch is no mean feat. And when you take everything thats been happening off the field it just makes it all the more brilliant. Kudos to team India and to their lion-hearted captain Anil Kumble.

India's bowling on this tour has been a revelation. This attack was considered as the third string attack with Zaheer and Sreesanth out injured. But RP,Irfan, and the young Ishant bowled as well as any seasoned attack could have. While RP and Irfan got the wickets with swing, Ishant combined swing with spiteful seam off the pitch to torment Ponting over a 8 over spell. That particular spell was a joy to watch. Ishant reminds me a lot of the young Javagal Srinath and if he can stay fit he can well emulate the glorious deeds of his predecessor.


Anil Kumble has been a great leader and a wonderful statesman. To keep the team focussed amidst all the chaos was some achievement. At the same time he handled all the media and other commitments off the field brilliantly and performed on the field as well. To reach the 600 wicket milestone was a simply outstanding effort and I dont think any Indian is going to beat his tally, atleast for some time to come.

Australia are not a side to be feared. In Melbourne India made the mistake of letting theirs bowlers dictate the terms. But that can be attributed to the lack of match practice on the Aussie wickets. Since then they have managed to throw punches back at the Aussie bowlers and achieved good totals. Sydney was a match where India dominated a majority of the time and the result would have been in India's favor had the umpiring been slightly better. The umpiring in this match was not the best either but an equal number of bad decisions were shared between the two teams and hence evened out. But to bounce back like they did at Perth shows the teams character and if they can continue the good cricket in Adelaide a draw in this series would taste much sweeter than a win!!