All sport is an endless struggle to scale the heights of human perfection. That sentence reads like a hopelessly pompous platitude, but I think it’s still true. We strive for perfection in our strength, our speed, our skill, our mental toughness; we chase that magic every time we step onto the field.
Perfection is an unattainable ideal. Some may touch it briefly, but none can be truly perfect. Everyone who chases it knows this. But when we see someone or something touch that greatness, some great catharsis takes place in the human heart. For as short a time as it may be, the human endeavour seems complete. The ideal seems attained.
This is the story of as perfect a Test match as I have ever watched. The Boxing Day Test of 2024, at Melbourne, between Australia and India, is a match that’s had a rather romantic effect on me (as is very visible to the reader). Some Tests may have had thrilling endings, or magnificent performances, but few have been perfect in every single moment. This match was.
Coming into Melbourne, the Border-Gavaskar Trophy was tied 1-1 after three Tests. Before the series had started, it had been billed as the heavyweight fight in world cricket: the two best teams in the world taking each other on. Australia had beaten India in the World Test Championship Final in 2023, but India had held the Trophy for ten years at that point, which included two series wins in Australia. The relatively equal strength of both teams led people to expect some cracking, evenly matched cricket.
Until Melbourne, that hadn’t really been the case. In the first Test at Perth, India demolished Australia, winning by 295 runs thanks to a Jasprit Bumrah spell from hell. Then the second Test came around in Adelaide. Mitchell Starc tore through the Indians with his pink-ball magic, and then Travis Head scored a remarkable century to thrash the Indians in return. In the third Test in Brisbane, another Travis Head hundred buried the Indians under a mountain of runs. India escaped the Test with a draw thanks to rain.
Though the series was level 1-1, none of the matches so far had been particularly close. The contest was searching for something greater than the one-sided affairs it had seen so far. Where were the two great teams who could match each other blow for blow?
Boxing Day gave us that. From the very first day, from the very first moment, no single team held the balance of power. The first day began with 19-year-old debutant Sam Konstas taking Bumrah on; a comical idea, if not for the fact that it worked. His ramps and slaps helped Australia off to a strong start, but India regrouped to limit the Australians to 311/6, and so the day finished evenly.
Day two belonged to Australia. Steve Smith raced to a massive 140, and Australia finished at 474 all out. Then India started batting. Yashasvi Jaiswal and Virat Kohli began to pile on the runs. Jaiswal looked set for a hundred. Then, in the last half-hour, everything came apart. A mix-up got Jaiswal run out, Kohli edged one to slip, and the nightwatchman was caught off the last delivery of the day.
Day three India batted, then batted some more. Nitish Reddy came in at number 8 and made a brilliant fighting hundred. At the end of day three, India was still batting, and the task had got much tougher for Australia now. The balance was swinging back in India’s favour.
Day four began with another Bumrah rampage. By the end of his spell, Australia was 91/6, and India was well ahead. But the Australians dug in. Marnus Labuschagne made a gritty 70. The last two batsmen, Nathan Lyon and Scott Boland, dug in too, and put on a 50-run partnership. I still believe that final partnership was the most pivotal of them all. Giving India 290 to chase in about 100 overs was a very different prospect from giving them 340 to chase in 80 overs. At the end of day four, the match hung on a knife’s edge.
Day five, the last day, began with India clearly trying to play out the draw. India didn’t lose a wicket in the first hour, but then lost three in the second, and the Aussies felt they were ahead. Then Jaiswal and Rishabh Pant batted through all of the second session, and now it was clear that India was ahead. Australia would have had to take seven wickets in the last session. It didn’t seem possible.
The final session began slowly, but then everything changed when Pant decided to swing at a ball bowled by Head. Mitchell Marsh caught it at long-on, and that sparked a collapse to reach the most remarkable crescendo. One by one, the Indians lost their wickets, and when Jaiswal gloved a short ball to the keeper, the match was as good as finished. Lyon took the final wicket in the last half-hour of play. Australia had won it.
I remember the end of that match very clearly. I was at my grandparents’ place, and I was huddled around a smallish TV with a grainy broadcast with my grandpa, uncle, dad, and cousin. It was late in the morning, and I had gone into the shower at the end of the second session, feeling quite certain that it would be a draw. When I came out, I was told that Pant had holed out. With my own eyes, then, I saw that final-hour collapse.
The lasting memory of that Test is the scene of that final wicket. Lyon was bowling to Mohammed Siraj, and I reckon they had eight fielders in catching positions all around him. He bowled one that went on to hit Siraj on the pads, and the entire field erupted in appeal. Lyon went down, appealing on his knees, his hands flailing, begging the umpire. When that finger went up, I remember his roar vividly. He pumped his fists with a ferocity I’d never seen before; his entire body was shaking. The crowd noise went mad, and the fielders swarmed Lyon. It was absolute pandemonium on that pitch in Melbourne. And back home, my uncle simply got up and walked off quietly.
What makes the perfect Test? The match has to have high stakes; a series has to be on the line. The quality of cricket must be high; strong batting and bowling performances from both sides. The match must be tightly contested, and the result should be close. And ideally, the match should go the whole five days, until the very last moment, when a full house must explode with delight.
Melbourne 2024 follows these guidelines so closely that it may be taken as the template. Australia battled for five days, eking out leads, losing them as India fought back, and at the very end, came out on top. For the first time in ten years, they went up in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
There was a Test in Sydney after, where Australia hammered home their series win, but Melbourne felt like the true final act, the climax of a long series. What was it about Melbourne that got me so misty-eyed? I think it is the joy of having seen magic on the cricket field. I knew then, as the umpire’s finger went up, and Lyon pumped his fists, and my uncle walked off, that this was an instant classic. The match seemed to have a will of its own, striving to go harder and harder, until it touched perfection for that brief moment. Sitting in my grandparents’ house deep in South India, I couldn’t help but smile at the scenes of Australia winning. The ideal had been attained. The cricketing endeavour was complete.
