Seeds for series sown in South Africa

For all the recent debate surrounding the state of pitches, the hue of the ball and the protocols of selection, it's been confirmed the seeds for the outcome of the Australia-India Domain Test Series were sown in South Africa.

And that happened a year prior to Virat Kohli's team securing a triumph that both he and his coach, Ravi Shastri, claimed was the equal, and possibly superior, to any of the nation's previous cricket high-watermarks.

For it was in South Africa, beginning this time last year, that India arrived with high hopes of remedying their well-known frailties on the road only to lose the first two Tests.

Results that brought with them changes in personnel and plans that were then carried into the subsequent five-Test England tour.

A month after India departed South Africa, having won the final Test against the Proteas to vindicate their altered approach, Steve Smith's Australia team landed there to begin a four-match campaign that would bring seismic impacts that reverberate still.

The upheaval that followed the ball-tampering episode in Cape Town – which meant Australia's two best Test batters would not be available for this home summer – coupled with the resolve instilled within India by their experiences meant the visitors would never see a better opportunity to win a series in Australia.

It was a chance they then seized with a surety rivalled only by Shastri's booming self-confidence that echoed through his post-match media conference with Kohli at the SCG when the fourth Test was abandoned due to persistent rain this afternoon.

"This tour didn't start in Australia, this tour started twelve months ago in South Africa," Shastri said, in lauding his team's 2-1 success

"That's where we said there's a certain brand of cricket that we are going to play, we will experiment with combinations, find out what suits the team the best and take it forward from there. 

"We learned a lot in South Africa and we learned a lot in England (where India lost the Test series 4-1). 

"We made mistakes which we didn't make in this series, we learned from those mistakes and fired it home properly."

Shastri's thunderous baritone not only bounced off the walls of the basement media room, his words were happily echoed by a buoyant Kohli.

"I totally agree with what he said," the skipper noted, turning to his coach with whom he has built a formidable and powerful partnership.

"It's not only the preparation for this tour, but also a lot of things that were required to win in Australia which was going to be the toughest we knew it. 

"We just worked on rectifying the mistakes, we didn't work on feeling good about the things that we did well, as a team.

"We focused on the things that we didn't do well, and sometimes those things don't sound too good but you need to accept a lot of things if we are to win as a team.

"So we laid out a lot of those things on the table and no one took offence to anything, and everyone accepted that, yes, we have made a lot of mistakes in certain areas, and come game time and game situation we were better than the opposition in those areas. 

"It is pretty basic but the one thing that we always stuck to was good intent, and doing things for the right reasons.

"We always did things to help the team and that's why we have been rewarded with the series win like this."

In the course of also taking not-so-subtle swipes at those who criticised Kohli's overtly competitive on-field persona as well as critics of the team within the India media after their indifferent offshore performances, Shastri proclaimed the greatness of their achievement.

A member of the India squad that won the nation's first major trophy – the 1983 World Cup which began the nation's ongoing love affair with limited-overs cricket – as well as the World Championship of Cricket tournament in Australia two years later, Shastri did not baulk at the comparison.

"I will tell you how satisfying it is for me," Shastri said.

"World Cup ‘83, World Championship '85 – this is as big, or even bigger, because it is in the truest format of the game. 

"It's Test cricket, which is meant to be the toughest."

Kohli also claimed the chance to defeat Australia on their own patch for the first time after 11 previous attempts since 1947-48 outshone his memories of India's 2011 World Cup win at home.

That was because he was a relative newcomer to India's ODI set-up and had not endured the anguish of previous failed World Cup campaigns that had come to haunt the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, whose generation of talent-laden teams secured little silverware.

"It (the 2011 World Cup win) was a great moment for me to be part of, but if you ask me which moment is more emotional I would say this one," said Kohli, who was installed as Test captain on his previous tour to Australia four years ago.

"That's because this is my third tour here, and I have seen with experience and being in the field as to how difficult it is to win here. 

"And all the struggles that we have gone through in the past 12 months as well, as a team. 

"So from that point of view, this one is more emotional to me and definitely will be more special, purely because of the fact that we really wanted to win a series away from home. 

"We didn't want to be a one-match-wonder kind of thing."

But amid all the deserved self-reflection and congratulations, Kohli made some observations from which the broader cricket world can take heart.

The passion for limited-overs cricket that exploded in the world's largest democracy after the 1983 World Cup win, and then shifted to the T20 game when India won the inaugural global tournament of that format in 2007, saw Test cricket increasingly take a back seat.

There have been genuine fears aired, given India's reluctance to embrace day-night Tests as crowds flock to the night time spectacle of the IPL, that the long-form's future is at risk if India's interest in it were to wane further.

However, when asked for his vision for India's Test team in the wake of their unprecedented Australia win, Kohli outlined his hope that - by creating history in Australia - passion for the five-day format will be re-ignited and therefore burn, undimmed, into the future.

"I see this series as a stepping stone for this team to inspire the next lot of Test cricketers," Kohli said.

"To be passionate about Test cricket firstly because, if the Indian team respects Test cricket, we know the fans are going to come in and watch Test cricket. 

"So, the vision is to promote Test cricket back home, to make kids realise that there is no greater satisfaction than playing Test cricket and winning series like these. 

"Doing well in series like this improves you as a person, not just as a cricketer. 

"In a world where a lot of people want the easy stuff, matches that finish in the evening, I think it's important to spread that message. 

"As long as the purest format stays alive, cricket will be healthy. 

"To promote that, we have to play the kind of cricket we have played here.

"If we play for boring drawn results, with the game going nowhere, it won't make a difference to Test cricket globally.

"So I would want to build on this to always promote the message of Test cricket being the most important and the most valued format of the game, which it rightfully is. 

"We are just proud to have the opportunity to be able to spread that message."

Domain Test Series v India

Dec 6-10: India won by 31 runs

Dec 14-18: Australia won by 146 runs

Dec 26-30: India won by 137 runs

Jan 3-7: Match Drawn

Australia squad: Tim Paine (c, wk), Josh Hazlewood (vc), Mitch Marsh (vc), Pat Cummins, Aaron Finch, Peter Handscomb, Marcus Harris, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Shaun Marsh, Peter Siddle, Mitchell Starc

India squad: Virat Kohli (c), Murali Vijay, KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Hardik Pandya, Hanuma Vihari, Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant (wk), Parthiv Patel (wk), Ravi Ashwin, Ravi Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar