Historic

The recently concluded Border Gavasker trophy shall go down as one of the most legendary and historic series in test-match cricket.

Any Indian fan will now tell you that the Indo-Pak rivalry stands defunct. The clear superiority emerging in the former's level of cricket (no guesses which side of the border I'm on!) coupled with the sorry state of affairs of the Pakistani board, have pretty have laid the yesteryears mother of all battles' to rest..

This last decade has seen the emergence of a new rivalry, one that has all the thrills, spills, below the belt and above the belt anecdotes that one can imagine from fierce competitors. It feels almost funny to use the word fierce with an Indian cricketing contingent but thanks to certain outstanding and outspoken leaders, the country now heralds a new set of heroes, ones that clearly let the combination of results on field ride alongside smart-assed jibes off it. Can I be more proud ? (insert tongue in cheek here:)

This series saw the retirement of 2 phenomenons of Indian sport. One a tireless and gutsy hero who defied the laws of conventional spin bowling and rose to greatness with an unmatched ability to deliver. The other, a revolutionary and charismatic artisan of the sport and its' vagueries; deftly steering India into a new dawn. One which recognized young talent, nurtured skill and backed its instinct to deliver counter punches to the deafening and unending mood swings of the idiotic Indian media, the foolish and knowledge starved indian cricket 'expert' and the growing list of cricketing 'pundits'....the lot of which probably played 5 one-day internationals between them and scored an equivalent number of runs/number of wickets.

I bow to Anil Kumble and Sourav Ganguly. You will be the heroes we speak of with pride and honor and hopefully smile to your stories in the commentary box years down the line. Hold your head up high in this, your last series as Indian sporting legends.

The Border Gavaskar trophy returns home. Many can argue that this Australian team lacked the spit and shine of previous teams but really, those debates are as pedantic as they are unecessary. What matters is that one team was systematically schooled on the way to win test match cricket. Schooled good and proper.

As an ardent cricketing fan, I need no rest and no respite. The poms are next and I wouldn't be surprised if I saw a shiver of nervousness upon their faces when facing this Indian team - it is truly a force to reckon with.