BANGALORE: India thrashed Australia by seven wickets in the second and final Test on Wednesday to sweep the series 2-0. Pujara hit a fluent 72 and Sachin Tendulkar an unbeaten 53, as the hosts, set 207 runs to win, cruised home on final day at the Chinnaswamy stadium here on Wednesday.
Austalia’s former skipper Steve Waugh termed India as the ‘final frontier’ in 2001 but failed to conquer it. Australia came in having won 15 tests in-a-row. They won the first in Mumbai and the lost in Kolkata and Chennai to lose the series and their unblemished record as well.
Ricky Ponting too has suffered similarly but without giving India a sobriquet as Waugh did. In seven Tests here, Ponting has failed to win a Test as skipper. He led Oz to the top of the ICC rankings. The Baggy Greens were the No 1 team for long. But a resurgent South Africa and then India have displaced them from that pedestal.
Dhoni and company ensured India stay atop the rankings while pushing the Aussies down to a never before No 5 on 10-team list. The Australians have been in a rebuilding process after stars like Shane Warne, Adam Gilchrist, Glenn McGrath, Justin Langer, Mathew Hayden all called time on their glittering careers in quick succession.
Yet, with Sachin Tendulkar crossing the 14,000 run mark capped with his 49th century to boot, in rousing form, their task was all the more tough. But as Dhoni said, the huge crowd on every day of a Test match here, was instrumental in givng the players the kind of psychological boost to perform well.