Tour of Australia 2007-08        Captain: Anil Kumble

India 59th Test tour

Ninth Test-playing tour of Australia by India

 (December 2007 -

             March 2008)

India, without a coach since Greg Chappell stepped down after the World Cup in April 2007, appointed Gary Kirsten who joined the tour midway through.

The International Cricket Council's match referee Mike Procter said he was satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that Harbhajan Singh called Andrew Symonds "a monkey" during the second Test at Sydney and gave Harbhajan a three match ban, at which the Indian cricket board (BCCI)  said it would suspend its team's tour of Australia. There was uncertainty for some time whether the players would be prepared to continue with the tour. Kumble’s accustation of one team not playing in the right spirit prompted the press to coin the term ‘Bollyline’.  The ICC dropped umpire Steve Bucknor from the third Test after complaints about his poor performance at Sydney. The Indians were galvanised into their first-ever victory at Perth before a high-scoring draw at Adelaide gave Australia the series.

On appeal the racism charge against Harbhajan Singh was not proven and he was instead charged with an offence of abuse and insult and fined half his match fee.

'The Australian' newspaper aptly summed up the tour— “A summer of spite ends in Indian glory”, because the Indians won the one-day Commonwealth Bank series. However, there were concerns about the Indian Board flexing its muscles and a loss of authority by the ICC.

Other Indian tours

Previous tour

 England 2007

Next tour

Sri Lanka 2008-09

Next Australian tour

2011-12

Members of the Test tour  party (16)

Opening baysmen : Wasim Jaffer, Virender Sehwag.

Middle orderatsmen: Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman, Yuvraj Singh

Wicket-keepers: Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Dinesh Karthik

Spinners:  Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh

Fast bowlers:   Zaheer Khan, Rudra Pradeep Singh, Irfan Pathan, Ishant Sharma, Pankaj Singh.

Representation of teams:    

Ba - Baroda (2)

Bn - Bengal (1)

D - Delhi (2)

H - Hyderabad (1)

Jk  -  Jharkhand (1)

K - Karnataka (2)

Mb - Mumbai (2)

Pj - Punjab (2)

Rj  -  Rajasthan (1)

TN  -  Tamil Nadu (1)

UP  - Uttar Pradesh (1)

Average age of  team at time of first Test match

(26 December 2007) :

    27 yrs  9 months

ODI :  Member of the VB Series one-day international squad

(ODI) withdrawn from ODI squad.

Test Appearances made before the tour

Tendulkar 142,  Kumble 121,  Dravid 115,  Ganguly 99,  Laxman 86,  Harbhajan 60,  Sehwag 52,  Zaheer Khan 52,  Pathan 26,  Jaffer  25,  Dhoni 22,  Yuvraj Singh 20,  D Kharthik 19,  RP Singh 7, VRV Singh 5,   Ishant Sharma 2,  Pankaj Singh 0.

Team Officials

On 1 December Lalchand Rajput, currently the coach of the Indian team, was appointed assistant coach for the tour.  Gary Kirsten officially started as coach on 1st March 2008. However, he travelled to Australia beforehand during the Test series.

Assistant manager Dr M V Sridhar was vice-president of Hyderabad Cricket Association. 

ODI manager Vimal Soni, appointed on 16 December, was vice-president of the Rajasthan Cricket Association.

Selectors

Dilip Vengsarkar (chairman of selectors),  S M Jagdale,  Ranjib Biswal,  Bhupinder Singh,  S V Raju.

Selection

On Wednesday 5 December  Anil Kumble was retained as captain for the Australia tour.

Injuries to Zaheer Khan, Munaf Patel and RP Singh forced a delay in the selection of the squad until 12 December, after the Bangalore Test. Instead, the selectors picked a list of 24 probables for the Australia tour:

Anil Kumble, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Wasim Jaffer, Dinesh Karthik, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, V V S Laxman, Yuvraj Singh, Sourav Ganguly, R P Singh, Munaf Patel, Zaheer Khan, Vikram Singh, Pankaj Singh, Ishant Sharma, Murali Kartik, Harbhajan Singh, Piyush Chawla, Aakash Chopra, Gautam Gambhir, Ranadeb Bose, Irfan Pathan, Ajit Agarkar, Parthiv Patel.

Unavailable :  Sreesanth (shoulder injury)  Gautam Gambhir (shoulder).

Tour Party Announced : 12 December 2007.
Sehwag was included in the team, although not among the list of 24 probables, because Gautam Gambhir dropped out
Omitted :  Akash Chopra,  Murali Kartik,  Munaf Patel (lack of fitness).

One day squad announced : 20 January 2008.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt & wk), Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, Virender Sehwag, Dinesh Karthik, Robin Uthappa, Gautam Gambhir, Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma, Irfan Pathan, Praveen Kumar, RP Singh, Ishant Sharma, Sreesanth, Harbhajan Singh, Piyush Chawla

Manoj Tiwary, Yusuf Pathan and Munaf were placed on standby to join the ODI squad in case of injuries.

Time between selection and departure from India     5 days

 (12 - 17 December)

Travel

The 16-member team assembled in Mumbai on 16 December 2007 and left by a morning flight next day, touching down at Singapore before flying on to Melbourne on Tuesday 18 December.

Piyush Chawla, Gautam Gambhir, Praveen Kumar, Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma, Sreesanth, Robin Uthappa all flew in for the ODI tri-series.

Time spent in Australia

   78 days

(18 December - 5 March)

On-tour selection committee

Reinforcements

Zaheer Khan had a heel injury and was unable to play after the first Test or in the ODI series, so Vikram Singhwas added to the Test squad and he flew in on 4 January.

For the one-day series Munaf Patel replaced injured seamer Rudra Pratap Singh (hamstring injury) and Manoj Tiwary was selected as back up for Yuvraj Singh (knee injury) who remained with the squad.

Fixtures/Results

 

St Kilda, Melbourne	Victoria	Drawn
MELBOURNE	AUSTRALIA  First Test	LOST 337 r
SYDNEY	AUSTRALIA  Second Test	LOST 122 r
† Canberra	Australian Capital Territory	Drawn
WACA, PERTH	AUSTRALIA  Third Test	WON 72 r
ADELAIDE	AUSTRALIA  Fourth Test	DRAWN
⊕  Melbourne	Australia (20/20)	Lost 9 w
§ Brisbane	Australia (1st ODI)	No result
§ Brisbane	Sri Lanka (2nd ODI)	No result
§ Melbourne	Australia (3rd ODI)	Won 5 w
§ Canberra	Sri Lanka (4th ODI)	Lost 8 w
§ Adelaide	Australia (5th ODI)	Lost 50 r
§ Adelaide	Sri Lanka (6th ODI)	Won 2 w
§ Sydney	Australia (7th ODI)	Lost 18 r
§ Hobart	Sri Lanka (8th ODI)	Won 7 w
§ Sydney	Australia (1st ODI final)	Won 6 w
§ Brisbane	Australia (2nd ODI final)	Won 9 r
§ Adelaide(7 March)	Australia (3rd ODI final)	cancelled

† not first-class

§  one-day international

⊕  Twenty 20 international

Time spent in Australia before First Test:

 8 days

(18 - 26 December)

Test appearances on tour

4 -   Dhoni,  Dravid,  Ganguly,  Kumble,  Laxman,  RP Singh,  Tendulkar

3  -  Harbhajan,  Jaffer,  I Sharma

2  -  Pathan,  Sehwag,  Yuvraj Singh

1 -   Zaheer Khan.

0 -   Kharthik,  Pankaj Singh.

Highlights

•    Sourav Ganguly became the eighth Indian cricketer to play in 100 Tests

•    India came back to win at Adelaide after conceding 400 for 5 on the first day

Tour Summary

Return to India

Zaheer Khan returned to India early with a heel injury on 3 January.  Manager Chetan Chauhan returned at the end of the Test series

Dravid, Ganguly, Jaffer, Kumble, Laxman, Pankaj  Singh, Zaheer Khan all left after the Test matches at the end of January. 

After winning the Commonwealth Bank tri-series, the team arrived home in Mumbai on 6 March from where they were flown to New Delhi and given a grand reception at the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium.

Time away from India

  80 days   (17 December to 6 March)

Finances