For their legacy, Australia can't let this Border-Gavaskar series slip away

He stood on the outfield at the MCG three weeks ago, the day before the start of an ODI series against Pakistan and fielded more questions about the Test side than he did about the one-day team.

All Australia’s captain has been asked about for months has been the arrival of India. Australia’s exit from the T20 World Cup in the Super Eight phase in June passed by relatively quietly at home because it happened in the middle of the night. Australia’s white-ball of the UK tour only made headlines because of the injury to Cameron Green and the ramifications that would have on the Test team.

The ODI loss to Pakistan caused a brief storm, ironically because five players were rested to prepare for the Tests. Barely anyone made any complaints when those same players were rested from the following T20I series that only finished on Monday, which was won 3-0 by Australia.

For the Australian public, only one thing seems to matter, and that is beating India in a Test series at home this summer.

They haven’t done it in 10 years. Australia have won a T20 World Cup, a World Test Championship and an ODI World Cup in that time, all away from home. But none of those achievements appear to matter quite as much to Australian cricket fans as back-to-back home defeats to India.

“I think for about half the change room we haven’t won the Border-Gavaskar, so it’s kind of one of the last things to tick off I think for a lot of us,” Cummins said on Thursday. “I also think almost every challenge that we’ve had thrown at us over the last few years, we’ve stepped up and done well. I think to do that for another year, another home summer would kind of cement this, rather than just being a two or three season thing, it’s suddenly into a half generation thing. So, yeah, we’re all excited.”

The anticipation has reached fever pitch. The back pages of some of Australia’s major papers have been printed in Hindi.

While a lot of focus has been on India in the build-up in Perth, due to the questions around their form and the make-up of their XI, this quietly looms as a big moment for this Australian team.

A third successive home series loss to India would not only tarnish the team’s legacy, it would also spell the end of an era. But Cummins believes there is no extra weight of expectation on his side.

“I’m not sure if it’s pressure,” Cummins said. “You always feel pressure playing at home. You want to do well. Us, as Aussies, expect to do really well here at home. So we know they’re a really strong side, and a lot of us were part of those most recent two or three series. It’s a big series. We’re kind of not looking too far in the past. It’s more every summer, whoever we’re playing against, we want to do well.”

There are no excuses this time. Australia were missing Smith and David Warner in 2018-19. There was strong discontent within the group around the coach Justin Langer in 2020-21.

This time the camp is as settled and as comfortable as they have ever been. Their opponents are the ones under fire. India enter Australia off a 3-0 home defeat to New Zealand. The last time Australia lost three Tests in a home series, in the 2010-11 Ashes, the selectors were sacked, the captain resigned and Cricket Australia commissioned a full scale independent review which led to the coach resigning after he was asked to reapply for his job.

Australia have been able to prepare quietly and calmly in Perth. But they know the knives remain sharp if they were to slip up. The saga around Smith’s stint as opener and the mass resting around the ODI series loss to Pakistan was proof that the Australian public are not unwavering in their support. But that decision was all about the big picture. And Cummins was confident it would bear fruit across what looms as a brutal five-Test series.

“A Perth ODI, 48 hours after playing Adelaide, we just thought it was kind of high risk for our players to go there and then fly back to Sydney, and then fly back here a few days later,” Cummins said. “Some people might disagree. I think it’s one of those ones that you might not necessarily see the benefits of it right away, but obviously we’ve got five Tests then into Sri Lanka and lots of other cricket. So it might not be until a few months later that you see those extra four days of travel kind of paid dividends.”

Australia have timed their preparation to the minute after months of talking. A vulnerable India awaits. It’s now or never to claim the Border-Gavaskar trophy for Cummins and his crew.

Alex Malcolm is an associate editor at ESPNcricinfo