Sparky India short the circuit

It will remain an imponderable whether Ricky Ponting's Australia would have extended their winning streak in Tests to 17 but for the furore rising from events in the Sydney Test. That ensured the rare break in the middle of a series was no opportunity for R+R, and Australia looked uncommonly enervated and underpowered. But perhaps the scars from Sydney were more specifically cricketing: there too, the Australian top-half crumbled to swing and seam, but produced a customary recovery from 134-6, as they have been required to do more than once in their 16 consecutive victories. It proved once too often to the well at Perth, with no way back from 163-6, in reply to a score of 330 considered under-par. Previously the Indians had found two seamers was a cupboard understocked, just as Australia realised too late this time that four was one too many. But with Irfan Pathan recalled and visibly rehabilitated, India had the bowling resources to maintain the assault; Australia, affected by the absence of Matthew Hayden more than they would have hoped or expected, could not stave them off.

This was a match when reality reared its head and crapped all over expectation. Australia, it was felt, could not lose - not at the WACA, its square restored to former glories and where India's last visit had shown them to be as sturdy as a paper wall gusted by the local Fremantle Doctor. Australia chucked the spinner and rolled out their quickest and meanest gun; blood was to be spilt on the altar of Lillee and Thomson. India's response was to salvage from the scrapheap a swing bowler who hadn't been doing much of that for a while. For anyone but to Australia to win at Perth is rare indeed these days; for one of the Asian countries, it is practically unheard of.

If man-of-the-match Pathan was an unlikely hero, one can add to that list several of his colleagues. Whence came RP Singh and Ishant Sharma; the sudden form of Rahul Dravid; the youthful abandon of Sachin Tendulkar, after years of playing like a tortured mortal? It is the preserve of touring teams in Australia to crumble in India's circumstances; the canvas down-under is not a bouncy one. But India, who have generally underachieved in this generation, have far greater gumption and guts away from home than their teams of old. They have had success in West Indies and South Africa, while series wins in England, as they managed last summer, do not come cheap, even taking into account England's recent form. It says a lot for their new captain Anil Kumble; three of his predecessors, all titans, bestride the batting order, yet the team seems vibrant and fresh. In the course of the match, Kumble took his 600th Test wicket, and now trails only the two spinners of his generation who have denied him deserved elegies. Captaincy, which he has come to late and circuitously, suits him no less than spin bowling - he is a special and underrated cricketer.

Before the series, it was the Indian bowling which was considered to be the main difference between the teams. India might score some runs, but it seemed unlikely they would run through Australia with their popgun-looking seam attack. How wrong we were. Seam and swing are the two oldest arts of bowling, but when done well they can discomfit even the best batsmen. It was those features of the English bowling which unseated Australia back in 2005, when they last lost a game. Faced with it again here, they showed that not much has changed, which is an indictment on the standard of quick-bowling worldwide as much as anything else. Again notable was Ishant Sharma, who took on Harbhajan Singh's mantle as tormentor in chief of Ricky Ponting. Moving the ball both ways off the pitch, he picked holes in the world's best batsman, giving credence to the thought that Ponting, had he played out his entire career against the much better pacemen of the Nineties, would have averaged closer to 45, as he did then, that the figure near 60 he has latterly achieved.

While India were in reasonable control for much of the game, nothing quite seemed to fit Australia's script: having done a good job cleaning up the Indian first innings, they did not capitalise on their well-earned ascendancy with the bat; they could not force the issue with India 160-6 in their second dig; and Ponting and Hussey, who might just have crafted a miracle, both fell when set in the chase for 413, and the big push never materialised. Seduced by the prospects of a lightning track, they went for Shaun Tait, who got through barely half the bowling of back-up spin-pairing Symonds and Clarke. The pitch had none of the fire promised; it emerged that it was in fact not one of the relaid surfaces. What umpiring errors there were went against them; they dropped catches. It was all a bit un-Australian, which will probably lead to questions being raised on how they have reacted to their behaviour being questioned in wake of the Sydney game. They would probably have to lose the next Test too for it to become an issue, but were that to happen it would be interesting to see whether the line that winning is worthless when you behave like yobs - easy to trot out when the team is winning - will hold when the opposite is true.

Adelaide will tell us a lot, although India's failure to see out the Sydney game means it will sadly not be a decider. Any defeat of Australia seems momentous, so rare are they, but the match at Perth was no classic; no-one made it to three figures with the bat, no bowler took five wickets in an innings. The man-of-the match gong went to a bloke who took that many in two goes and made a pair of handy contributions with the bat without reaching 50 on either occasion. It was run of the mill in every way, except Australia lost. But twinned with the game at Sydney, which India should never have allowed Australia to win, it does show that the rivalry between these two teams is genuine, which can only be good for the game. What is not good is that India had barely a day of competitive cricket before the series began and that the premier contest in world cricket has not been given a fifth Test. That would probably be too much to ask, as it was for Ponting's team to eclipse Stephen Waugh's record. They may have reached the end of that line, but it should not be forgotten that the 16 consecutive victories came off the back of the 2005 Ashes and proclamations that the Australian era of dominance was over. The response to that was emphatic; and Ponting, who takes defeat along with all other insult seriously and personally, will be looking to start again.