Even before a ball was bowled in the India-Australia four-match Test series, Virat Kohli's team were regarded as favourites. Some cricketers like Harbhajan Singh stated that the current Australia team will lose 4-0, but the first Test in Pune was a different story, where India were embarrassed by the Aussies, who won the match by 333 runs, something unusual in the last few years when India were at home.
Watch India vs Australia 1st Test highlights
India, who are always known to be masters at home, embarrassed with the bat, scoring 105 and 107 runs.Neither Virat Kohli nor Murali Vijay or any of the Indian batsmen could cope with the Australian spinners. Steve O'Keefe was the architect of Australia victory as he took 12 Indian wickets with his gentle, but effective, slow left-arm bowling.
At a time when the India batsmen have been embarrassed and crictised for their failure to play spin bowling, batting legend Sachin Tendulkar was kind to the India players who had been doing well of late in India.
"Coming to India-Australia Test series, it was a tough Test match for us. But it is a part and parcel of the game. The loss (in the first Test) does not mean that the series is lost, the series is still wide open," NDTV Sports quoted Tendulkar as saying.
However, this first Test loss has brought India down to earth, and with the home team keen to perform well in the remaining three Test matches, a quality encounter is expected. Australia are also fully aware that the wounded Indian team will come back hard at them.
"Knowing the spirit of the Indian team I know that they will fight back hard. The Australian team also knows about it because when we beat them, we also knew that they are going to come back at us really hard. I have no doubt that the Indian team is going to come back and compete hard," Tendulkar said.
Kohli might be pleased with the kind words of Tendulkar, but it remains to be seen if it will be of any help in the future matches in the Test series.
