No bubbly, but a champagne moment anyway

It was a moment to savour, and savour the Indians did. As soon as the last Aussie wicket fell, the tension that had been building up in the ...

It was a moment to savour, and savour the Indians did. As soon as the last Aussie wicket fell, the tension that had been building up in the Indian dressing-room burst like a breached dam.

Batting consultant Sunil Gavaskar came running out of the dressing room and, making straight for coach John Wright, embraced him in a hug. As the players started trooping in, physio and fittness trainer Andrew Leipus and Greg King shouted themselves hoarse. They were almost — though not quite — as charged up as the players.

With no champagne on offer, Gavaskar — that veteran of so many champagne moments — tried to lighten the mood further, splashing bottled mineral water on members of Team India.

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Harbhajan Singh, usually the most voluble, didn’t disappoint; he clenched a fist and entered the dressing room shouting expletives. No damage was done though as Mohammed Kaif got Prof Ratnakar Shetty of the Maharashtra Cricket Association to shut the doors and windows of the dressing room. In the chaos, even the official broadcasters were shut out just as they were warming up with Murali Kartik for an interview.

In the midst of the festive atmosphere, coach John Wright presented a touch of sobriety. ‘‘After being out for 103 in the first innings and then to stage a comeback is a very good achievement.

It is a very pleasing win,’’ he said. Following that though, he changed gears abruptly, shut off his media requests, and went in to join his boys.

Wright is usually an unemotional man, and rarely lets his feelings show. But today, when he presented the more staid face, it appeared uncharacteristic. Because for the best part of the Aussie second innings, he was almost uncontrollable, pacing up and down the length of the players’ enclosure, and expressing all the emotions Indian spectators felt.

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As the wickets:runs ratio hovered between extremities, Wright oscillated between angry and tense. The anger was palpable as Jason Gillespie and Michael Kasprowicz threatened to cheat his team of a win, and then, as wickets fell, it was tension mode.

Just in front of Wright and team statistician S Ramakrishnan were the two reserves Dhiraj Jadhav and Shib Shankar Paul, sitting with tension written all over their faces. Paul, in fact, was even seen saying a prayer even as the teams decided to extend the play by half an hour. Jadhav had to keep going out with messages and Wright was seen standing, straining, as if to see if the message was conveyed correctly.

But at the end of it all, there was joy, for the first time in so many days.

Chairman of selectors Kiran More joined in, as did the longest-serving member of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, PM Rungta.

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Also joining in were members of the broadcasting team, some of who are former India cricketers.

But it wasn’t all happy and fun. Debutant Gautam Gambhir, who returned scores of 3 and 1 — seriously hampering his chances of taking over from Aakash Chopra as Virender Sehwag’s opening partner — looked on as fellow debutant Dinesh Kaarthick and man-of-the-match Murali Kartik were being hounded by journalists.