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Dubai: Former Indian captain Ravi Shastri attributed India's victory in Australia to the guts and aggressiveness of the new blood in the Indian team.
"Never before have the Australians faced a team that stood up against them aggressively to dominate them psychologically. The Indians made them taste their own medicine for the first time," Shastri told Gulf News yesterday.
"These youngsters are so fearless that they paid them back at every instance. Indians did get under their skin and towards the end of the tour one could see it affecting the Australians. Indians got tougher and played some fabulous cricket," added the player turned commentator, who had closely observed all the drama in Australia.
"The Australians have always played the game hard, but in the past they never carried anything out of the field. Allan Border, the Chappells and even Shane Warne did make comments, but they remained on the field. Unlike Matthew Hayden, Ricky Ponting and Andrew Symonds they never went to the media or made statements on radio about players or teams.
"The Australians tried their best to rattle Harbhajan Singh, but he only got stronger and stronger. In the end he was the one who called the shots and bowled brilliantly in the final.
"The Indian players backed their talk with performance. It is not something that the Australians are used to. They were also backed by two good leaders in Anil Kumble and Mahendra Singh Dhoni," he added.
Competitive series
"The crowd's response was tremendous. For a long time they have not seen a competitive series with Australia being dominated by their opponents. Cricket made the front pages of newspapers for the right and wrong reasons," said Shastri, who is the chairman of the National Cricket Academy, which grooms young talents to be stronger technically and mentally.
When asked whether Australian cricket is on the decline, he said: "I won't say that the slide has begun, but the gap between Australia and other teams has lessened. When Australia tour India next time they would not be coming as favourites and it will be an even series."
Shastri believes that "India has started winning abroad because they now have an attack which can take 20 wickets."
"Ishant Sharma has shown that with his pace and bounce he can trouble anyone. He got better and better with every match."
Shastri also hailed Sachin Tendulkar's performance.
"Tendulkar has shut everybody up once and for all. He had a fabulous series. He rose to the occasion when it mattered the most," said Shastri, who also feels that the new Indian coach Gary Kirsten has the right temperament to mould India into a stronger team.
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