At the Sydney Test
The ABC's statistician on a decisive New Year's Test
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Friday
No image of a Sydney Test match is complete without one including clouds, but in 2025, Zeus was apparently on sabbatical, and the match was played under skies sympathetic to cricket. Sydney (26 days) thus declined to extend its lead over Manchester (25) as the venue with the most complete playing days lost to rain.
The declining performances of Australian strike bowler Mitch Starc as a five-Test series progresses were noted in pre-game discussion. In the first Test of a series, he averages 25.89 runs per wicket; for the second it is 24.47. As fatigue begins to set in, these numbers increase: For the third Test, it is 28.72, the fourth 49.30 and the fifth 32.28. His overall average at Sydney is 42.41 runs per wicket, so putting the two together doesn’t augur well for the left-arm quick.
With Mitch Marsh playing only a minor role (33 overs only in the four previous Tests, 12 of them in one innings), relief for the premier quicks while they rested between spells is at a premium, with only Nathan Lyon, taking three minutes per over, available to provide variety. But help is at hand: Marsh has been replaced by the tall Tasmanian allrounder Beau Webster, who comes in as Australia’s 469th Test player. Since COVID, his first-class all-round record (2864 runs at 48.54, 89 wickets at 36.88) compares favourably with that of Marsh (1192 runs at 39.73, 13 wickets at 43.62).
We are graced in the commentary box by tennis great Jim Courier, in Australia to cover the impending Australian Open. He shows a keen interest in an activity not entirely familiar to him, in the company of Sunny Gavaskar and Alison Mitchell, whose glances, caught here, reflect their indecision as to the best way to convey to him the rules of this strange game.
The Australian team for both Melbourne and Sydney Tests includes the nineteen-year-old Sam Konstas, but Webster’s inclusion at the age of thirty-one does nothing to alter this unique constitution of players either younger than twenty or older than thirty in the Australian team: No other Test team has had this characteristic. Two other teams (England, Lord’s, 1921, and New Zealand, 2022-23) have had players solely in their 30s, but every other Test team ever been has had at least one player in their 20s.
Webster’s bucket hands at third slip safely capture a chance offered by Jaiswal, and I’m asked how many Test players have taken fewer than Webster at this point. A search reveals that 619 of the 3,207 Test players (19.3%) have never had the satisfaction in a Test Match of feeling of a five-and-a-half ounce orb of leather settle into their hands before it has bounced.
Virat Kohli (17), clearly not the dominant player he once was, faces 69 balls before he is dismissed—his longest innings, in terms of balls faced, without hitting a boundary. His previous highest innings by this measure was the 48-ball innings of eleven he played at Chennai against England in 2021.
Scott Boland snares Rishabh Pant and Nitesh Reddy in successive balls, the latter being his fiftieth Test wicket. He now has an average of 18.64, with a strike rate of 40.44. He finishes this Test with 17.66 (the lowest of those playing since 2010 and with fifty wickets) and 38.23 (bettered only by Gus Atkinson, Kuldeep Yadav and Marco Jensen) respectively.
Another visitor to the ABC box is former Prime Minister John Howard, eighty-five not out, and still in love with cricket. I note that the current Prime Minister has not beat the traditional path to this room in either of the years he has been in charge, but John always ensures that his office is represented at the Sydney Test. This year, Harsha Bhogle is on duty when he makes his appearance.
Pat Cummins, in his 67th Test, snaffles two wickets today, taking him to 291 in Test cricket, level with Craig McDermott (71 Tests), equal eighth of all Australians.
Prasidh Krishna, in his third Test, takes a single off Boland, his first run in Test Matches. He this leaves CR Rangachari (five innings), SP Gupte and Mukesh Kumar as the only Indians to have played three Tests without scoring a run.
India are dismissed just before stumps for 185, leaving Australia fifteen minutes to survive. Off the eighteenth (and last) ball, after some interesting histrionics from both sides, as the Aussies attempt to forestall the bowling of a fourth over, Khawaja edges Bumrah to third slip, giving the Indian bowler 31 wickets for the series. He thus draws level with Bishan Bedi (1977/78) in having the most wickets by and Indian bowler in a series in Australia. With nineteen wickets for the taking in this Test, he seems to have a good chance of reaching the 38 wickets of Maurice Tate exactly a hundred years ago—the most by a visitor to this country in a single series.
Saturday
The second day starts at 9 a.m., as it traditionally does now, with the awarding of the Alan McGilvray Medal for the best overall Australian Test player in Calendar Year 2024, sponsored by the ABC. The ceremony in front of the Members Stand is kicked off by Jim Maxwell, who has organized the voting, before he passes to Angus McGilvray, Alan’s grandson, and a genial landowner from the bush. He spends some considerable time professing his appreciation for last year’s winner before presenting the medal to Cummins, who has made 304 runs at 23.54 to accompany his 37 wickets at 24.03 in nine Tests in 2024. Fortunately, play is able to start on time.
Bumrah makes a further incursion into the Australian batting by removing Labuschagne cheaply, taking him to 32 wickets, and past Bedi’s record. He bowls six overs in his first spell, and another three later on in the morning. But his third spell, just after lunch, is just confined to six balls. Something is amiss.
With India bowled out for 185 and Australia at 4/39, I discover that this is the sixth-lowest batting average for a Sydney Test, of which there have been 113. The previous lowest occurred in 1947-48; the other four are confined to the nineteenth century. This is out of character for Sydney!
Travis Head plays an entertaining innings of three balls (dot, four, wicket), and thus completes the full set of sub-ten-ball innings in Tests; he now has one through nine covered.
Beau Webster takes his bow and immediately looks comfortable, with a seemingly impregnable defence. He strikes two nice fours early on, then a single off Bumrah, now in his second spell. This takes him to 11*, making him the highest-scoring Beau for Australia. Beau Casson made 10 in 2008.
Webster’s partner in a 57-run stand is Steve Smith, who becomes the sixth Australian to score 5,000 Test runs on home soil, after Border, Steve Waugh, Ponting, Hayden and Warner.
While Webster is moving comfortably and assuredly to his fifty, the ABC commentary team is scratching its collective head in attempting to list the twenty Tasmanian-born players whom I declare have played Test cricket for Australia. Boof Lehmann is a very impressive secretary, writing them neatly in his beautiful Gawler High cord-cursive script alongside the notes he makes to assist him with his commentary. We get to nineteen with little trouble—Jim Maxwell is very good in identifying Sam Morris—but I have to give some fairly obvious clues before the last is identified: Doug Ring, born in Hobart in 1918, and a 1948 Invincible after playing with Victoria.
Meanwhile, Beau Webster has done the right thing for his future Test prospects by reaching his fifty while skipper Cummins is at the other end. We Tassies may have produced twenty cricketers, but Beau and Ricky Ponting are the only ones of those to make it to fifty at their first outing.
This time the tail does not hang around for long, and Beau, finally out for 57, finds himself top-scorer as Australia fall four runs short of India’s first innings. I note that he is only the 28th Australian (out of 469) to so top-score on debut, a chain started by Bannerman back in 1877.
After tea, with the sides virtually level, Jaiswal starts India’s second effort by taking four fours off the first over of the innings, delivered by a perplexed Mitchell Starc. A look back at my scoring sheets reveals that it took India 29 overs in the first innings to hit that many boundaries.
Wickets fall regularly, though—including one to Beau Webster, his first in Test cricket. He might have finished with three for the Test, but a couple of his mainland colleagues let him down with some butter fingers.
Pat Cummins also chimes in with three wickets, thus moving past Craig McDermott’s 291 in Test cricket. (See above.) For Cummins, Brett Lee (310 wickets) is the next target.
Despite the looming catastrophe, Rishabh Pant comes in to play a typically pugnacious innings. He launches Scott Boland for six off his very first ball, and adds another three to go with half a dozen boundaries before falling to Cummins for 61, made in 51 minutes off 33 balls.Indians cheer wildly when I announce that this is the fastest measured 61 in Test history, knocking none other than Viv Richards (36 balls against India in 1983) from his pedestal.
Off the second-last over of the day, bowled by the unlucky Webster, Steve Smith flings himself in front of Usman Khawaja at first-slip to make a pretty impressive meal of a straightforward chance offered by the obdurate Jadeja. With my Tasmanian colours on, I angrily post a list of dropped catches in the series, which shows that Smith, with seven, is four clear of anyone else on either side. This brings some extraordinary comment on the X platform, most of it exhorting me to change the number downwards by excluding those that were “hard.” This was not one of them.
An analysis of the missed chances shows that India have caught 85% of their opportunities this series, Australia 81%.
India end the day 145 runs ahead, but with only four wickets in hand. The last two Tests have not gone as well for them as I thought they might.
Sunday
Today is Pink Test Day, when Glenn McGrath, through his foundation, raises millions of dollars to help in the fight against insidious cancer. This year, for the first time, the fund-raising will assist all sufferers of cancer, rather than just the breast cancer that has been the focus up to now. It is a testimony to Glenn’s model that this expansion has occurred. Records are broken this year as “virtual seats” to the cricket are sold at $20 a pop, raising over $8.5 million. Through it all, Glenn remains his normal humble self, coming in to do his commentary stints as rostered, then dashing off to some event around the ground in support of his foundation. He has a gong of some sort, and I cannot think of a more worthy recipient. Meanwhile, we all deck out in our resplendent pink, Andrew Moore and Darren Lehmann included.
Jadeja’s dismissal by Boland in the second over of this third day denies what slim chance India had of setting a challenging target, and the remaining wickets are disposed of in fewer than eight overs. Australia are set 162 runs to win the series 3-1, and reclaim the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. I note that 162 has never been set as a target before in 2,575 Tests. We are in uncharted waters.
Australia commences with its usual early-innings wobbles, which include 22 runs off only seventeen balls by the youthful Sam Konstas, before he perishes at mid-off. For once, though, Usman Khawaja holds firm, taking Australia’s score to three figures.
India are sorely hamstrung by the absence from the bowling crease of Jasprit Bumrah, the exertions of the past six weeks having taken their toll on his body. I wonder how the day might have eventuated had he been fit to bowl. With 32 series wickets, it is clear to see he was never mastered.
Khawaja’s departure brings in our island hero Webster, and combining with a more measured Travis Head, the pair take Australia to victory before 2.30pm. Two imperious drives by Webster (39*) off Washington Sundar complete the victory, and for Webster, a debut he could only have dreamed about. He is the thirteenth Australian to be at the wicket for the winning runs—and in this case, to hit them.
As only a good Tasmanian can do, I post a list of the most successful Australian Test batsmen ever, headed by Kurtis Patterson (144.00), Albert Trott (102.50), Don Bradman (99.94) and Beau Webster (96.00). This is a good time not to be insisting on some qualification. And a nice coincidence is that another mighty Tasmanian, Ricky Ponting, also made 96 runs in his debut Test.
Thus endeth one of the most enjoyable series it has been my pleasure to witness, fought between two highly competitive sides, bringing together some of the world’s best cricketers, and capturing the imagination of the public so much that nearly 840,000 people came to witness the combat over the five Tests. And for me, a milestone sixtieth Test working for the ABC in a magic later-in-life career that I never imagined.
Monday
And what does one do when the fourth day of the Sydney Test is rendered redundant?
Ric Finlay serves on the ACS general committee, and as cricket statistician and scorer for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
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