New Zealand stunned India in a monumental Test cricket upset (Photo by PUNIT PARANJPE/AFP via Getty … [+]
This shocker of a result, magnified by the seismic differences in resources and finances between the countries, needs context beyond the humble game of cricket.
Let’s not undersell this. New Zealand’s monumental upset of cricket powerhouse India might just be the biggest upset in all of sports. That’s entirely subjective, of course, but shouldn’t be merely dismissed as hyperbole.
Consider this. The last time India lost a Test series at home was against England when the opener in that five-match affair started just a week after Barack Obama beat Mitt Romney in a staid election compared to current events.
In the 12 years since, India had won 18 consecutive Test series at home, smashing the previous record of 10. Before being vanquished in successive Tests, India had only lost four of 53 home matches.
It was an astonishing record even better than Australia’s unparalleled team of the 1990s and 2000s – cricket’s GOAT certainly statistically – considering 18 of those wins were by an innings.
India were left stunned (Photo by PUNIT PARANJPE/AFP via Getty Images)
Put simply, beating India at home is arguably the hardest task in sport. Unlike other sports, where perhaps the only edge is the hollering from the bleachers, home ground advantage is decisive in cricket – especially in the Test format.
Very good teams had tried and failed. Australia’s best teams since that golden age – 2017 and 2023 – were gallant and stole victories but ultimately fell short. England’s Bazball shtick rattled India briefly earlier this year before being steamrolled in familiar scenes in uncompromising terrain.
Usually when India are thrown against the wall at home, the authorities allow for a little bit of home cooking. Conditions, coincidentally of course, skew wickedly in favor of the hosts meaning rampant spinning pitches are rolled out without a hint of shame.
It was inevitably the situation that confronted New Zealand in Pune after the Kiwis stunned India in the series opener on a seaming surface in Bengalu. Perhaps the writing was on the wall, but most pundits discarded the first Test result. A lot of the blame lay at skipper Rohit Sharma’s decision to bat in conditions that were lapped up by New Zealand’s giddy seamers.
India were blown away for an embarrassing 46 – their lowest ever total at home – and they slumped to an inevitable defeat despite fighting back at times.
India skipper Rohit Sharma struggled against New Zealand (Photo by Abhishek Chinnappa/Getty Images)
But that defeat felt like an outlier, mostly due to the seam-friendly conditions and perhaps overconfidence from India who had seemingly viewed this series as a tune up before their blockbuster tour of Australia next month.
No one really thought India were in serious danger of a series defeat until the second Test started unfolding and it became clear that something remarkable was taking place. Left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner turned into Rangana Herath as New Zealand tore through an aging Indian team that felt like they were on their last legs.
Rohit and superstar Virat Kohli appear to be shadows of their primes. Kohli, cricket’s most famous player and an all-time great batter, has performed modestly in Test cricket for the past five years and, at 36, his playing days are numbered.
Virat Kohli’s Test record has been patchy for years (Photo by IDREES MOHAMMED/AFP via Getty Images)
The upcoming India-Australia blockbuster series suddenly appears like a mismatch. It could well prove to be a major anti-climax. This India team has echoes of the washed tourists in 2011-12 when Australia swept them in the only dud of a series between the sides Down Under since the turn of the century.
New Zealand’s triumph defied much more than Indian conditions and manufactured surfaces. The Kiwis, like basically every country not named Australia and England, are set up to fail due to the sport’s lopsided finances which skew heavily to India.
Even though the BCCI boast a $6 billion media rights deal for the Indian Premier League, the mighty governing body receives close to 40% of the revenue share from the International Cricket Council’s new $3 billion broadcast deal.
Due to the country’s sheer population, obsessed fandom and deep pockets of its governing body, India should really be completely dominating the sport something like the U.S. in basketball.
They haven’t been able to except for at home in Test cricket. That was until the implausible events of the past couple of weeks in an upset that stacks up with any we’ve ever seen in sports.
