Laxman’s Inning Of 281, v Australia, 2001 Is The Best Test Inning Ever

VVS Laxman’s inning of 281 against Australia in the 2001 Test series was the greatest ever played in the history of Test cricket. It was the most memorable match I had ever seen. Never before had I seen any team win a Test match after coming back from such a backward point. India were trailing by 274 runs in the first innings and followed on. It was only the third instance in the history of Cricket out of the 1535 Test matches played thus far that a team had won a match after following on. It was a thriller of a match. Never ever had a better fightback been witnessed by anyone. Steve Waugh himself gave this comment. It indicates that he must have been awe-struck by India’s performance. The three main heroes of India’s victory were VVS, Rahul Dravid and Harbhajan Singh. It was the second Test of the series played at Calcutta. Australia batted first and scored 291/8 on the first day. The situation was even on Day 1 as Aus had scored a good 291 runs but India too claimed their 8 wickets. Harbhajan Singh had taken a hat-trick – India’s first hattrick in Tests and 29^th overall. The Australians seemed overconfident as they batted aggressively even after losing a good number of wickets. On Day 2 Aus went on to make 445. Steve Waugh scored a century (110) and Jason Gillispie made a career best 46. It was a good recovery by Aus after the late evening-lower order collapse on day 1. When India started batting, none of the batsmen could stand the fierce bombing of the Oz bowlers. Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne, Kasprowich and Brett Lee were delivering fire from both ends. India were 171/8 on day 2 and Laxman was the only survivor with 59 to his credit. On Day three morning the Indian lineup got dismissed for 171. The first inning trail was 274 and the team had to follow on. It was a mammoth task and even saving the match was looking unlikely. But destiny had something else in store of India. In the second inning Indian batsmen showed a different character. They fought hard and built 232/4 on Day 3. Laxman was batting on 107 and Rahul on 11. Both the batsmen were looking in good rhythm. But still the target was a mountainous one. VVS had come at no.3 and Rahul at no.6. Rahul was demoted in this match because the selectors and the team management were not happy with his recent form. I was extremely disappointed with this decision as it was a great insult to a batsman of his class. He is too extraordinary a batsman to be given this treatment by the board. He had played so many big innings and centuries in the past that he could not have been punished for a little slump in form. Class is permanent, form is temporary. India needed to make a huge score to save this match as they were still behind Aus’ first inning total by 42 runs. Nobody had thought what could happen on Day 4 but Laxman and Dravid proved that they were made of steel metal. They both batted the whole day and finished the day on 275 and 155 respectively. Laxman had surpassed India’s highest individual score of 236 in the course (Sunil Gavaskar). The Board was happy with him and announced a prize money of Rs.1000 per run as soon as he went past Gavaskar’s score. It was a classy performance by the two batsmen. Their partnership was of 376, the highest for India for any wicket. Laxman in his inning had hit Shane Warne for a number of fours over mid-wicket in a very stylish way. Warne used to bowl him at the leg stump and he used to jump forward and push away him for four. It was a thrilling contest. He smashed all the bowlers for boundaries and it was an epic inning to watch. Rahul Dravid’s knock too was no less. On day 5, Laxman got out for 281 and Dravid for 180. India declared their inning for 657/7. Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan played some lusty shots in the end and took the team’s score farther from Aus’ reach. The bowlers then did the remaining task as Harbhajan Singh took a magnificent 7 wkts and the visitors went all out for 212 chasing the target of 384. Harbhajan Singh finished the match with figures of 13 wkts (6 in I inn and 7 in II). But the biggest hero of the match was VVS Laxman (Very Very Special Laxman, as the Oz players started calling him from then onwards) who scored a big 340 runs (59 in I inn & 281 in II). Never in the history of the game had such a great inning been witness because never before had such a difficult match been played. VVS Laxman deserves all the credit for this hero’s win. His performance was truly magical. He is a giant of a player and is capable of playing many big knocks of this quality. India from there went on to make history by winning the third Test and beating Aus 2-1. It was India’s greatest ever performance in Tests. Any amount of praise is not enough for this performance. Thank you India for giving us this win. We are all extremely proud of this.