Steve Waugh, Kolkata and the myth of the follow-on

The famous Test battle at Kolkata's Eden Gardens that finished 20 years ago today gave rise to many a myth.

Among those subsequently shown to carry some credence was it would be nigh-on impossible to defeat a modern Indian Test outfit on their turf (largely true given they have lost just two of the 33 home series since that epic campaign two decades ago, to Australia in 2004 and England in 2012).

Another was that no Test team would surpass the dominance of Steve Waugh's star-laden line-up, whose run of 16 consecutive Test wins was ended by India's stunning comeback in Kolkata (although that benchmark was equalled by his captaincy successor, Ricky Ponting, barely seven years later).

But the legend that has lingered most enduringly since India pair V.V.S Laxman and Rahul Dravid batted an entire day against the world's best bowling attack to rewrite history is that Australia's defeat made them hyper-sensitive to enforcing the follow-on in Test cricket.

Image Id: 3FDEFC273BAE4526A1BD62FB1E2ED949 Image Caption: The heroes of Eden Gardens // Getty

That story undoubtedly sprung roots in fertile soil.

If an Australia attack led by Glenn McGrath, Jason Gillespie and Shane Warne – the trio who had laid waste to India's vaunted batting troupe to set up a 10-wicket win in the series opener a fortnight earlier – could not engineer victory despite holding a 273-run first innings lead, who would risk bowling twice in succession?

However, like so many conspiracy theories and fake news narratives that flourish in the social media age, it's a neat thesis that doesn't do so well when subjected to closer scrutiny.

If teams in general, and Australia more specifically, were gun shy of going for the kill when an opponent was seemingly at their mercy then it would surely have been quite some time after Kolkata before another Test skipper enforced the follow-on.

Yet it happened just five months later, and at the insistence of Waugh, who instructed England to bat again at The Oval, even though the home team had posted 432 in their first innings and trailed by a tick over 200 runs.

England were then knocked over inside five hours by the same three bowlers who had been found wanting in Kolkata, supplemented by Brett Lee.

The fact that Australia had deployed that four-man bowling line-up across all five Ashes Tests of that 2001 series also puts paid to the suggestion a captain would only consider enforcing the follow-on when his attack is fresh and the series young.

Beyond that anecdotal example, there is more compelling evidence that the great escape of Eden Gardens did not lead Test captains to turn thin-lipped and ashen-faced when confronted by the quandary of a large first-innings lead.

Before the laws of the game were changed in 1980 to stipulate the follow-on could only be enforced if the team batting second was 200 runs or more behind, the most recent case of a Test team doing so when less than 200 ahead came in Jamaica in 1971, when India skipper Ajit Wadekar invited the West Indies to bat again despite his team holding an advantage of just 170 runs.

In the 30 years between that game and the Kolkata Test of 2001, the follow-on was enforced 89 times in 852 matches, which represents a shade over 10 per cent (10.44) of all Tests played.

Across the two decades that have elapsed since India's stunning 171-run victory at Eden Gardens, that ratio has grown rather than dwindled to 11.18 per cent, 98 occasions from 876 Tests played.

Image Id: C061572185FC4C2B93D252EEDF29A508 Image Caption: Steve Waugh ponders Australia's loss in Kolkata, 2001 // Getty

Of the five Test teams to have enforced the follow-on 10 or more times during the past 20 years, Australia seems statistically the most reluctant having done so 6.36 per cent of the time (14 occasions from their 220 Tests played).

Yet in the 30 years prior to Kolkata – a period that includes their dominant eras in the mid-1970s and much of the 1990s – Australia's follow-on rate was almost on par at 6.94 per cent (20 times in 288 Tests).

It's therefore not unreasonable to surmise that if Australia have appeared reluctant to force opposition batters and their own bowlers to follow-on in Test matches since Kolkata, it's more likely the result of habit than histrionics.

Although the first occasions after Eden Gardens that Australia took 200-plus leads on the first innings and opted not to send their opponents straight back in was in Bangalore and Nagpur on their subsequent tour to India in 2004, when they turned big advantages into Test match wins.

Indeed, while Waugh seemed undaunted by the defeat at Kolkata and enforced the follow-on in all seven subsequent Tests in which circumstances allowed, there was far greater reticence to do so among the skippers that immediately followed.

Image Id: FFDB07EB54624F57B535AD626CA9D0BF Image Caption: India's winning moment at Eden Gardens // Getty

Despite leading Australia's Test outfit through a gilded period from 2004-2010 (51 wins from 81 matches), Ricky Ponting and Adam Gilchrist were much less likely than their predecessor to enforce the follow-on.

Of the 14 occasions Australia teams led by Ponting and Gilchrist were able to enforce the follow-on, they chose to do so just four times, which might conceivably be a by-product of the Kolkata Test in which both men played.

And from which both players learned the lesson of hubris, as well as history.

Ponting had posted half-centuries in the pre-Test tour game in 2001 against an India A team that included young spinner Harbhajan Singh, and admits he was "hardly quaking in my boots" as he faced him in the first Test before Harbhajan dismissed him for scores of 0, 6, 0, 0 and 11.

Similarly, Gilchrist had been so dominant against India's spinners in the opening 2001 Test in Mumbai, where he plundered a century from 84 balls, that he fronted the rest of the squad to explain what it was like to be batting 'in the zone' and how he began each innings telling himself he already had 20 or 30 runs on the board.

Image Id: B8B842B37C8042FC84AF7AFFCAF1CAA8 Image Caption: Laxman and Dravid batted for all of day four // Getty

He went on to score 0, 0, 1 and 1 in his final four knocks of that campaign.

And Waugh would concede it was the mindset of his team as much as his decision to make India follow-on that proved most costly in Kolkata.

In truth, the seeds for that historic loss were likely sown in the preceding Test in Mumbai when Australia found themselves 5-99 in reply to India's first innings of 176 before Gilchrist and Matthew Hayden blasted a sixth-wicket stand of 197 from 32 overs to set up victory.

Waugh's decision to bowl first in Mumbai was based on Australia's record, as he wrote in his autobiography Out of My Comfort Zone: "… we had won 15 Tests in a row. That statistic meant we'd bowled out the opposition on 30 consecutive occasions, so we knew how to get the job done".

"The (Mumbai) Test ended in a 10-wicket win for us, even though for a long time it seemed the game could go either way. We had the knack of winning."

So when day three of the next match ended with India four wickets down in their second innings and still 20 runs in arrears, Waugh recalled "we buzzed around the changeroom at Eden Gardens imagining what the celebration was going to be like after we won our 17th Test in a row ..."

Image Id: 08648146B974442D81778C0857989B28 Image Caption: Shane Warne was no match for Laxman and Dravid // Getty

Then Laxman (281) and Dravid (180) batted out day four, before India declared their second innings holding a lead of 383 and Australia's batting imploded in the final session as they chased an impossible win.

Waugh, the first of the seven Australian wickets to fall for 46 runs after tea on day five, noted it was his intention to keep India "pinned down" after their loss in Mumbai that led him to enforce the follow-on after a brief discussion with coach John Buchanan and the team.

Buchanan maintains that if the decision had been discussed and debated over a longer timeframe, it would have become apparent the only way India could get back into a Test in which they seemed hopelessly buried was for them to follow-on, post a big total and put Australia under pressure.

Although given the momentum Australia had built and the sense of destiny they had developed heading into Kolkata, it's unlikely Waugh's decision would have altered.

Just as the follow-on facts probably won't overshadow the myth.