On Wednesday the president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India recalled the famous Test win against Australia in 2001. Sourav Ganguly took to his Twitter account to post a video of Indian team celebrating in the dressing room post the famous win.
What a win .. https://t.co/4nMm5e2eb7
— Sourav Ganguly (@SGanguly99) April 15, 2020
Under Ganguly’s leadership Indian cricket team became only the third team in the history of Test cricket to win the match after being force to follow-on. They were all-out for only 171 in reply to a massive 445 set by Australia in the first innings. The stage was set at Eden Gardens, Kolkata, the hometown of Sourav Ganguly. Steve Waugh, the Aussie captain enforced the follow on and the rest was history.
VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid went on to create history by an extraordinary 373-run partnership and India declared on 657/7 in their second innings. Laxman’s 281 and Dravid’s 183 were etched forever in the history of Indian cricket.
Harbhajan Singh picked up a hat-trick to in the match to become the first Indian to record the feat in the first innings. Eventually he ended by picking up six wickets. Australia were all out for 212 and India won the Test by 171 runs. Reminiscing those moments of victory, Sourav Ganguly wrote, “What a win…”
The match went on to change the face of Indian cricket. It was undoubtedly one of the most significant wins against the terrific Australians who were undefeated for 16 Test matches before the Eden Test happened. In fact Steve Waugh had termed winning a series in India as the “final frontier” because Australia had not won any series India after 1969. Unfortunately, they remained unsuccessful even in 2001 and the 35-year old record was finally broken in their India tour 2004.