It would be a gross understatement to say that India gave Australia a run for their money. In tests it was a closely fought contest and India totally outplayed Australia in the one day series. Had it not been for the bad behaviour in Sydney from Australia, I am quite certain that India would certainly have squared the series. In my mind I have no doubt that the series was a drawn affair though the results don't show likewise.

India lost the boxing day test in Melbourne quite convincingly but then it showed a lot of resolve and character in bouncing right back and taking Australia to the brink in Sydney and then defeating in Perth. This kind of resolve and character was seriously missing from the teams of past and one has to praise the stellar leadership of Anil Kumble of holding the team together and extracting the performance that one could only dream about. In the last Ashes tour, England went in to Australia on the back of winning the Ashes and were quite confident. After receiving a sound beating from Australia in the first test, they never got back on their feet and whimpered to a white wash. Contrastingly this Indian team believed in itself and stood by each other in difficult times and made sure that their performances did not go down at any time.

"What separates this lot from the past is the self belief, ability to look back in the eye, confidence and lack of inferiority complex that Indians have"

What separates this lot from the past is the self belief, ability to look back in the eye, confidence and lack of inferiority complex that Indians have accumulated after 150 years of British rule and 45 years of socialist rule. The belief that we are equal to others was simply not there. More than the on field performances, it was the Indian attitude of not getting intimidated and intimidating back that unsettled the Aussies and it came as a shock to them that elicited the reaction that came out from them. A couple of instances that I could point out is the way Harbhajan Singh called out Andrew Symonds in the Sydney test and gave him a piece of his mind when Symonds was hurling abuse (sledging) at Harbhajan. I was watching that incident and was stunned by this. Second one comes to my mind is when Ishant Sharma got rid of Andrew Symonds (him again?!?!) after being hit for boundaries Ishant gave Symonds a word of "advice" and pointed in the direction of the pavilion. Andrew Symonds had no business staying back and talking back to Ishant Sharma after he was out. Agreed that Ishant Sharma might have crossed some line while celeberating (Remember Venkatesh Prasad in 1996 World Cup Quarter-Final against Pakistan in Bangalore?) but he did not deserve to be punished, at least not him alone. But that's besides the point.

Harbhajan has been targeted by the Aussie players especially Hayden and Symonds and Aussie media for some harsh treatment and words leading up to both the finals. Harbhajan responded back to them in style not with words but by getting both of them out in both the finals. How much better can it get? And then there's the media's favourite, Sachin Tendulkar. People especially the media are lately lightning quick to write him off and call to discard him as an expired commodity. But as I had written earlier, he always proves them wrong and comes out stronger. Just look at his numbers in the series. As Mahendra Singh Dhoni aptly put it, "He has made 16000 runs and I have not even faced 16000 balls."

I am not saying here that there is a new peking order in the making. Australia are still the best team in the world in both the forms, but all I am saying is they are not as dominant as they used to be so they better watch out their behaviour if they don't want to be slammed.