The end of Australian Domination

Australia ended a disastrous tour to India having lost the series 2-0 and the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Does this mean the beginning of the end of Australian Domination or does it mean that other teams are catching up with them? It is clear that India has made tremendous progress in the last few years, specifically after 2000 under the leadership of Saurav Ganguly. He is the first Indian Captain who raised the profile of Indian Crickets image overseas by building a team with both experience and youthfulness by his astute qualities, leadership skills and killer instinct (which I thought India was lacking previously though individual players like Kapil Dev, Srikkanth etc exhibited this from time to time)

Under Ganguly's captaincy India won 11 Tests overseas including matches in Sri Lanka, West Indies, England, Australia and Pakistan. India's success abroad has continued even after Ganguly's tenure ended with the torch being handed over to Dhoni after a short 'delay' when Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble were captains

"Winning at any cost", the Australian way, was simply lacking in this series. There may have been many reasons behind this, but the decision of Ponting to use his spinners on Sunday - and then watching them ease the pressure on India - instead of looking for a quick kill and thinking of the consequences later cost them the test , the series and the coveted Border-Gavaskar trophy.

I always considered Steve Waugh as a much better captain than Ponting, but loosing one series doesn't make Ponting a bad captain either. I am sure Ponting will be back to his winning ways when Australia start their series against New-Zealand later this month. However, this series win by India will give a lot of confidence to other test playing nations to take on Australia whose "invincible label" is cracking especially after the retirement of Warne, Mcgrath and Gilchrist. Saying that even when these players were playing for Australia, India have always been a headache to Australians as they have lost 3 of their 4 test series in India in the last decade....